The Cruel Stars

by Christopher Nuttall

  We have to buy time, she thought. And if that costs us our lives ...

  It wasn't something she’d thought about, before the war. She’d been a patriot, but a belter patriot. She’d feared, as had many others, that there would be a clash between the Great Powers and the Belter Federation; she’d known, if that day had come, that she would have to choose a side. And yet, interplanetary war had always seemed pointless. The belt had imposed change, even on Russian or Chinese facilities. They hadn't had a choice, not when their best personnel started to desert. The Great Powers might win the war, only to discover that they’d laid the seeds for the next war.

  But now, the universe had changed. And the belt could not stand alone. She was a human patriot now, just as they all were. The ruthless pragmatism of the belt demanded it. But would everyone else feel the same way? Or was her sacrifice going to pass unremarked?

  Poddy cleared her throat. “Signal from the flag, Mum,” she said. “We’re leaving at nineteen-hundred-hours precisely.”

  Abigail nodded. “Spread the word,” she said. “And remind everyone that this is their last chance to write a will. They’ll want to make sure everyone knows what they want to do with their ill-gotten gains.”

  She smiled at the thought, although it wasn't really funny. The Royal Navy had paid a major bonus for the combat recordings. Maybe not enough to repay the loan she’d taken out, years ago, but enough to put her in a very good position if she wanted to buy another ship. And even the junior crewers on Haddock had enough bonus money to give them an excellent chance of buying a ship of their own. Some of them would certainly want to do so, after the war. It wasn't something she wanted to discourage.

  And Anson might be able to get a loan from the rest of the family, if he wants a ship himself, she thought. It would take him years to repay it, but the terms would be good.

  Her heart sank as she realised it might not be so easy to buy a starship after the war. The civilian shipyards were already being repurposed to construct warships, rather than commercial ships. And even if the war ended, there would be a push to rebuild the space navies rather than the interstellar shipping fleets. Anson and Poddy might have the cash, but would they find anyone willing to sell?

  Stop worrying about the future, she told herself, as she rose. The future can take care of itself. The present is now.

  Leaving Anson in command, she walked her ship from bow to stern, inspecting each and every one of the refits and modifications. The engineers had done a good job, she considered, although the Workhorse freighters had been designed to be easy to repair or modify. Whoever had approved the design had shown a grasp of long-term thinking she’d assumed to be beyond most groundpounders. Haddock still wasn't a warship - she was too slow and bulky to be effective in a knife-range fight - but she did have some advantages of her own. Abigail just wished they had more armour.

  She returned to the bridge as the drives started to power up, a low thrumming echoing through the hull. The last set of reports were on her display, waiting for her. Haddock was as ready as she was ever going to be. The engineers had already disembarked. Abigail felt a pang of regret, mingled with the grim awareness that extra engineers wouldn't help if they came under heavy attack. Haddock wouldn't survive if the aliens bore down on her with all their might. She didn't know any starship that would.

  “The flag is signalling for us to take our place in formation,” Poddy said.

  “Anson, take us out,” Abigail ordered. She braced herself as the drives grew louder. “And then follow the flag to the tramline.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Abigail felt her gut clench. She’d thought she’d understood there was a war on, but she hadn't until she’d actually seen the aliens. This was no genteel shoving match between Great Powers, or a punitive expedition against a rogue state. This was a war to the death, with no surrenders accepted. And humanity could lose ...

  She shook her head, slowly. She’d read all the speculations, all the suggestions that humanity had somehow mortally offended an alien foe or that the human form might be terrifyingly ugly to the aliens. But none of them meant anything, compared to the simple fact that the aliens had started the war. And now humanity had to fight or die.

  And now we’re on our way, again, she thought. Who knows what we’ll run into this time?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “You have to remain focused on the targets,” Alan said, irritated. “The aliens move like flies on a griddle.”

  He fought to keep his voice even as he studied the latest set of stats. The old hands - and it was strange thinking of men who were barely out of their teens as old - had done a good job, but the newcomers hadn't done anything like so well. It was a very different threat environment to the one they’d trained for, he had to admit, yet they had to adapt to the new world. The aliens wouldn't give them a chance to learn from their mistakes.

  His eyes swept the briefing room. “This isn't a simulation where everything is hyped up a little, just to keep you on your toes,” he added. “The alien craft truly are that good - and their point defence is a nightmare.”

  “It's too good,” Flight Lieutenant Thomas Andrews said. He was one of the older pilots, nearly ten years out of the cockpit. “How are we meant to get a torpedo run through that level of firepower?”

  “Keep dodging, granddad,” Greene said. “They can't fill every last millimetre of space with plasma fire.”

  “They’re certainly trying,” Andrews snapped back. “It’s starting to look like we need mass drivers, not torpedoes.”

  “I believe the boffins are working on them,” Alan said. Mass drivers had been regarded as weapons of mass destruction for years and there had been a tacit agreement, amongst the Great Powers, not to build them. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. A solid projectile might soak up plasma fire before it slammed into a target and punched right through the hull. “However, we have to make do with what we have.”

  He tapped the display. “Next time, I want Herring to cover Kipper as you push the offensive,” he added. “And I expect all of you to work on your flying. Let the computers handle the firing. They’re better at snap-shooting in any case.”

  “Perhaps some of us should take drugs,” Greene muttered. “Their reflexes are dull ...”

  “At least we’re trying,” Andrews said. “You decided to clown around while we were flying into the teeth of enemy fire.”

  “Quiet!” Alan snapped, before a real argument could break out. “Like I said, we have to make do with what we have! And that means all of you working together. If you have a problem with it, complain to the Admiralty. I’m sure they will be glad to hear from you.”

  He sighed, inwardly, as his eyes swept the compartment. There were drugs that enhanced reflexes, but they tended to come with unexpected and unwanted side effects. Pilots were not allowed to use them, unless the situation was truly dire. Even now, Alan doubted the Admiralty would endorse their use, certainly not on a regular basis. The possible consequences were too bad.

  “We’ll resume our simulations in an hour,” he said. “Get something to eat, then report back to the simulators. And be prepared to be flying for hours. Dismissed.”

  He watched the pilots leave, then sat back in his chair. “I feel old.”

  “You don’t look a day over one hundred,” Bennett said, dryly. He sat in the corner, reading a datapad. “And some of those pilots are older than you.”

  Alan nodded, shortly. The reservists were trying, but it was achingly clear that some of them had seen the reserves as a chance to earn a retainer while doing very little, while others weren't in the best physical state. They understood the importance of what they were doing - and the implications of losing so many starfighters and fleet carriers - but their reflexes weren't up to standard. Normally, none of them would be allowed to fly anything more complicated than a shuttle.

  This is the new normal, he told himself. Get used to it.

  He glanced at the report
on the datapad, forwarded from one of the pickets in the Asimov System. The aliens hadn't moved, after occupying a handful of systems near New Russia. It bothered Alan, more than he cared to admit. They had to be planning something, but what? It wasn't even clear if they could read and understand human datafiles. If they couldn't, they’d have to find their way to Earth through extensive survey work ...

  Don’t count on it, he thought, sourly. We don’t dare assume they didn’t manage to recover astrographic data.

  Not, he supposed, that it mattered. With care, the aliens could have surveyed most of human space over the last couple of years, without triggering any alarms. No one had been watching for aliens, after all. Any stray sensor contacts at the edge of a populated star system would be dismissed as vacuum fluctuations or sensor glitches, instead of an alien fleet. The aliens could have brought their forces all the way to Earth without being detected, if they knew where to go. He supposed that, if nothing else, was a sign the aliens didn't know anything about the internal astrography of the human sphere.

  “We have three weeks to go,” he said. “Do you think we have a chance?”

  Bennett shrugged. “You’re the CAG,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re going to take some pretty heavy losses,” Alan said. He studied the starchart, thoughtfully. It wouldn't be long before they started to crawl through occupied space, making their way to their destination. “And they might be able to catch us while we’re sneaking back.”

  “Worry about the mission first,” Bennett said. “Extraction will come later.”

  Alan shot him an odd look. “Was that what they taught you?”

  “We were always trained to balance pre-mission planning with improvisation and muddling through,” Bennett told him. “There was always something that threw the plans out of sync.”

  “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy,” Alan agreed.

  “Quite,” Bennett said. “And the man on the spot is the one best qualified to decide what to do.”

  Alan shrugged. He was the man on the spot, as far as he could tell, but he didn't feel as though he knew what to do. No, that wasn't quite accurate. He knew what he wanted to do, but he knew he couldn't do it. The older reservists were the only pilots available to reinforce his squadrons, while the younger ones went to fleet carriers or orbital bases. He understood the cold logic all too well. His pilots were expendable. And yet, he didn't like it. How could he?

  Bennett rose. “Keep designing your simulations,” he said. “And keep altering the parameters. You don’t want them to get complacent.”

  “I doubt anyone will,” Alan said. He held up the datapad. “Our most successful mission cost us two-thirds of our starfighters and three of the carriers. One real mission like that will be enough to ruin us.”

  “It depends, I suppose,” Bennett said. “How much harm would you do to the enemy?”

  Alan watched him go, feeling tired. There was no hope of actually answering that question, not when they knew next to nothing about the aliens. Would destroying a fleet carrier cost the aliens ten percent of their forces? Or five percent? Or one percent? How many fleet carriers did the aliens have? There was no way to know. And how badly would they be hurt if Alan wiped out a whole convoy? Again, there was no way to know.

  And we’re all expendable, Alan thought. He knew the Admiralty would happily sacrifice the entire flotilla if it killed an alien fleet carrier, but it was impossible to tell how badly that would affect the balance of power. There was a time when the term ‘favourable loss rates’ became meaningless. We might wind up losing the war if the aliens can afford to trade fleet carriers for us.

  He stared down at the datapad for a long moment. It had only been a week ... stats would improve, surely? But he knew there were limits. Starfighter piloting was a young man’s game, not something for men who were old enough to be fathers ... one of them was even a grandfather. There was a reason the military rarely recruited anyone older than thirty - and even that was a stretch. But the war took priority. Better to bring back the old fogies than waste younger pilots on what might be a forlorn hope.

  That could be me, he thought, as he rose. I might have been called back to the colours, even if ...

  The thought cost him a pang. He’d tried not to think of what his life would have been like, if Judith hadn't cheated on him or if he hadn't killed her. Colchester made it hard to think of what might have been. And yet, now ... he sighed. Would he have retired? He probably wouldn't have had a shot at a command chair, not when there were plenty of officers with better connections. But he might have gone into training or wound up flying a desk or ...

  He cursed himself, under his breath. Maybe he would have taken early retirement. Vets got preference, almost everywhere. He didn't have the best of educations, but he could have gotten into a training course or even found a job as a consultant. The big corporations liked having military vets on staff. It was easier to sell a starfighter design to the military if it had passed muster with someone who’d actually flown starfighters for a living. He could have watched his daughters grow up ... he could have taken them to school, listened to their teachers, threatened their boyfriends ...

  They’re too young to date, he told himself, firmly.

  They won’t stay that age forever, a little voice pointed out. And they’re not the babies you remember any more.

  He gritted his teeth. The in-laws hadn't been very good about keeping him informed. For all he knew, they were mistreating his daughters. It wasn't impossible ... he shook his head, angrily. The in-laws might despise him, but they wouldn't harm his little girls. Jeanette and Alice were their daughter’s children too. But not knowing was maddening. There hadn’t been any response to his letter before the squadron had left Sol.

  I might have to sue for visitation rights, he thought. And that won’t be easy.

  The hatch chimed. He looked up as Maddy stepped into the compartment. “I have the latest reports, sir,” she said. Her uniform looked slightly mussed. “The new systems performed well.”

  “In simulations,” Alan pointed out. He took the datapad and read the report, quickly. “We have to remember that simulations are not reality.”

  “Yes, sir,” Maddy said. Her tone was so painfully polite that he knew she wanted to remind him not to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. “But they’re as close as possible to reality.”

  Hah, Alan thought.

  He passed the datapad back. “I’ll go through it later,” he said. “Right now, I have more simulations to run. Did the commodore set any time for live-fire exercises?”

  “No, sir,” Maddy said. “But we don’t have much time to carry them out.”

  Alan nodded. The other escort carriers had to be having similar problems, then. In peacetime, the thought would have given him a certain amount of guilty amusement. A captain whose ship was at the bottom of the tables for two weeks running would be sure to feel the brunt of his admiral’s displeasure. And while he knew it was important for everyone to train constantly, it was a relief to know they weren't the worst in the fleet.

  But now we’re at war, he thought. And our very survival may depend on our comrades.

  “I’ll check with him later, if we don't have a schedule by the end of the day,” he said. Flying starfighters while they were sneaking through occupied space would be a good way to commit suicide. Starfighters were many things, but they weren't particularly stealthy. The aliens would have plenty of time to note their course and speed, then set an ambush. “Did you get a report from the sensor crews?”

  “They report no major problems,” Maddy said. “But they’re unsure about alien sensors.”

  Alan sighed, crossly. The aliens had their sensor masks - cloaking devices, one wag had called them. They knew their sensor crews might have to find someone else using the sensor masks one day. And they knew enough about the sensor masks to pick out any weaknesses ... tracking a ship in silent running might be easy, by compar
ison. Alan knew better than to assume the aliens weren't looking for ways to break their own stealth. It was what the Royal Navy would have done.

  “We might be about to find out,” he said. He rose. “I need to grab something to eat. Coming?”

  Maddy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  “Ping Anson,” Abigail ordered. “Where is he?”

  Poddy, wisely, didn't say a word as she keyed her console. Abigail watched her, reminding herself - sharply - that whatever had happened wasn’t Poddy’s fault. But she was damned if she wasn't going to chew Anson out for being late. Freighter crews could be slapdash in places - she didn't care what her crew wore, as long as they did their jobs - but there were limits. Someone who was meant to be on the bridge at 1800 was damn well meant to be on the bridge at 1800.

  The hatch opened. Anson stepped into the compartment. “Mum, I ...”

  Abigail rose. “Don’t you mum me,” she snapped. “Where were you?”