[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I was merely told that I was being reassigned,” Richards said. “That’s the military life for you, son. Love it or jump out an airlock.”

  “I don’t know if I will re-up when my time expires,” Percy admitted. It wasn't an easy thing to say. Richards was clearly a natural lifer, a man who would stay in the Navy until it was time for mandatory retirement, while Percy had his doubts. “I could find a patch of land on Britannia and settle down to farm.”

  “They won’t run out of land in a hurry,” Richards said. “But do you really want to farm?”

  Percy shrugged. His father had been a investment banker when he hadn't been flying starfighters, but Percy had never cared for the life. It hadn't done his mother any favours, he saw now in the cold light of hindsight, while Penny hadn't really handled it well either. There was definitely something to be said for the simple life, even if it did mean hours of backbreaking labour on a farm. Britannia was booming and those who got in on the ground floor, he’d been told, were certain to make a packet in later life. And have something worthwhile to pass down to their children.

  “I see doubts,” Richards said. “Just make sure you know what you want before you commit yourself.”

  “Thank you for your advice,” Percy said, waspishly. “What did you do before someone sentenced you to fly a desk?”

  “Senior Chief Crewman on Illustrious,” Richards said. “I survive the war and they up and throw a desk at me. It wasn’t fun, let me tell you.”

  Percy blinked. “Warspite needs a Senior Chief?”

  “I have no idea,” Richards said.

  They looked up as a young man wearing a pilot’s uniform stepped into the compartment and frowned at them. “If I could have your attention please,” he said, “I will commence the safety briefing.”

  “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t turn on the lights, don’t do anything I wouldn't do and don’t do half the things I would do either,” Richards said, loudly. “Did I miss anything?”

  The young man scowled, then went through a long safety lecture. Percy tried to pay attention, but after the third repetition it grew harder to keep his mind fixed on the speaker’s droning voice. One thing he had learned, in the Royal Marines, was that if something went wrong on a shuttle, it would probably be completely fatal. There was no point in worrying about what to do if the shit hit the fan.

  “If you’re not close to life support gear,” his instructor had said, years ago, “bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.”

  “Thank you for listening,” the co-pilot said finally. “I hope you have a pleasant flight.”

  “Definitely not a hot stewardess,” Richards said, once the co-pilot had left. “How disappointing.”

  Percy shrugged. “I don’t think the military assigns pilots based on their hotness,” he said, although he had his doubts. Penny had told him that their father had brought a pretty young pilot to the camp, after the Battle of Earth. Percy wondered, sometimes, if their father had been having an affair. “And besides, what hot pilot would want to fly an Earth-based shuttle?”

  Richards smirked, then launched into a long and complicated story involving ten hot pilots, nine stewardesses and a dozen Royal Marines, all of whom had been trying to find out just how many people could fit into a shuttle. It took Percy several moments to realise that Richards was trying to distract him from the shuttle’s takeoff, something that was hardly necessary. But, as a Senior Chief Crewman, Richards would no doubt have supervised hundreds of young crewmen taking their first steps off-world. Keeping them distracted from everything that could go wrong was part of his job.

  “It sounds like a porn movie,” he said, when Richards finally came to an end. “I think I might have seen it, once.”

  “Everyone’s seen it,” Richards agreed. “Do you know how many copies I had to confiscate while I was on duty?”

  Percy snorted. The Royal Marines weren't supposed to store porn on their military-issue terminals, but he’d yet to meet a Marine who actually obeyed that injunction. Porn was one way to while away the time while on deployment, after all. He still recalled the lecture his unit had received, during their first deployment, when one of the bootnecks had been careless about his giant porn stash. The Sergeant had insisted, sharply, that nothing like that was ever to be left lying around where the senior officers had to take notice of it. They might understand - they were bootnecks too - but they had to uphold standards.

  “Hundreds,” he guessed. It was amusing to know the regular crewmen had the same problem. “Or thousands?”

  “Around that,” Richards said. “The war, at least, got people focused on our true reason for existence.”

  Percy nodded, then turned his head and peered out of the porthole. Earth was gone, replaced by a field of unblinking stars. It had surprised him, once upon a time, to see the stars burning steadily in the inky darkness of space, but there was no atmosphere to produce the twinkling effect. Now, he couldn’t help but realise just how tiny he was compared to the immense universe. Even humanity’s growing domains covered only a tiny fraction of the galaxy.

  And there are dangers out there, he thought, recalling his father’s final battle. He still didn't know the full story - he knew no one who did, because the files had been carefully sealed - but he knew his father had died a hero. Aliens out there, waiting to fight us.

  He shuddered. Five years ago, no one had believed in aliens. Humanity had discovered over thirty Earth-like worlds and none of them had evolved anything more complex than a small dog-analogue. Earth had seemed a lucky accident, the sole world to develop an intelligent race. No one had seriously believed that there might be others, scattered across the stars, not until Vera Cruz. And then the human race had been plunged into war.

  “There might be other threats out there,” he mused. “Other aliens with bad intentions.”

  “There might,” Richards agreed.

  Percy jumped. He hadn't realised he’d spoken aloud.

  “We can't really say for sure what we will encounter,” Richards offered, gently. “All we can really do is make sure we’re ready for anything.”

  “Which might boil down to being ready for nothing,” Percy said, crossly. It had been years since a thoroughly embarrassing exercise in the Bristol Reclamation Zone had taught him and his fellow recruits to watch for all possible angles of attack. They’d anticipated a land offensive and had been taken by surprise when the aggressor force dropped from the skies. “I don’t think we can prepare for all possibilities.”

  “True,” Richards agreed. “We might run into the Bat Ships tomorrow and get blown into tiny pieces.”

  “Oh,” Percy said. “Do you believe the rumours?”

  Richards shrugged. “Spacers see all sorts of crazy things out in the darkness,” he said, simply. “The Tadpoles were real, so the Bats might be real too.”

  Percy had heard the story, but he also had his doubts. Years ago, a starship exploring a newly-discovered star system had reported sighting a giant bat-like starship, hovering over a deserted world. There had been no sensor recordings, not even visual images, and so most people had dismissed the whole encounter as a hoax cooked up by bored survey crewmen. But a handful of other reports had come out of the woodwork since then, all sharing the same basic elements. A bat-shaped ship, visible only to the naked eye.

  “Rumours,” he said. “Maybe it’s just another UFO craze.”

  “Maybe,” Richards said. “But who believed in aliens before the Tadpoles arrived?”

  They fell into a companionable silence as the shuttle raced towards its destination. Percy reached into his duffle, found his terminal and glanced through - again - the set of orders he’d been issued by the CO. Report to Lieutenant Darryl Hadfield, HMS Warspite. Assume command of 2 Section. Follow orders from superior authority. As always, the orders were vague; the person on the spot was expected to handle the situation using his own initiative, rather than await orders from higher up the food chain. Percy wasn't too surprised. I
f someone had seen fit to assign twenty-one Royal Marines to Warspite, when they were needed on Earth, it suggested they expected trouble.

  Or that we will be going far from civilised space, he thought, grimly. Who knows what we might encounter so far down the tramlines?

  “There she blows,” Richards said, suddenly. “Take a look.”

  Percy looked up. The shuttle was approaching a starship - a cruiser, judging by the size - and heading towards a docking port. Warspite was larger than he'd expected, her hull bristling with weapons and sensor blisters. A unit number was blazed across her dark hull, with her name written underneath. He sucked in his breath as the hull loomed closer, then braced himself. A dull clang ran through the shuttle as it locked on to the airlock, followed by a hiss as the airlock opened.

  “Come along,” Richards said, as the gravity field shimmered around them. “We don’t want to be late.”

  Percy nodded his thanks to the two pilots as he walked past them and through the airlock, into the ship. A small work crew was already forming up outside the airlock, evidently ready to start moving supplies from the shuttle into the hold. Beyond them, there was a young man wearing a Royal Marine battledress, optimised for starship deployment. Percy walked past the work crews, stopped in front of the young man and saluted, smartly.

  “Corporal Percy Schneider, reporting,” he said.

  “Lieutenant Darryl Hadfield,” the young man said. His voice was largely unaccented, but Percy had enough experience to be fairly sure Hadfield was from Wales. Blue eyes flickered over Percy’s face and uniform, leaving him wishing he’d had time to freshen up. “Come with me.”

  He turned and marched down the corridor. Percy followed him, quietly assessing his new commanding officer. Hadfield was young, strong and clearly experienced, although he probably hadn't expected sole command of a deployment so early in his career. But then, one habit the Royal Marines had eventually copied from the USMC was to have everyone start out as a groundpounder, then have promising young men turned into officers after they gained some real experience. Hadfield was young, but he was still old enough to have seen real combat in the war.

  “This is Marine Country,” Hadfield said, as they stepped through a hatch. “You’ve served before, so I won’t bother to go over the specifics. We follow standard procedures, save for the absence of a guard on the hatch. I don’t have anyone to spare for the post.”

  “Yes, sir,” Percy said.

  “Nor do we have separate accommodation.” Hadfield continued. “We have one barracks for all of us, one office for us to do our paperwork and one training compartment. And we have to share exercise facilities with the crew, I'm afraid. They’re as pleased about it as we are.”

  Percy smiled as Hadfield led him into the office. Starship crewmen and Royal Marines tended to keep themselves to themselves, even though they were both cooped up in the same starship. The idea of sharing an exercise compartment with crewmen was irritating, although he knew it was hardly the end of the world. There might be arguments, disagreements and fights, but it wouldn't be the worst thing he’d experienced. The deployment on Mars would be hard to beat.

  “We’re running constant training exercises, in and out of the ship,” Hadfield continued, as he sat down on one side of a metal table. “You’ll take command of 2 Section at once, then bring them up to speed. I’m not anticipating any need for a deployment, but I’m damned if we will be caught unprepared.”

  “Yes, sir,” Percy agreed. Taking command of a section he barely knew - he hadn't had time to do more than glance at the personnel files - would be a challenge. “I won’t let you down.”

  Hadfield keyed his terminal. “Sergeant Peerce, report to my office,” he ordered. “Danny has been in command of 2 Section until you arrived. You’ll find him very helpful.”

  Percy nodded, although he wasn't as sanguine as he tried to appear. There were always tensions when one commanding officer was relieved by another, even when it had been planned in advance. Sergeant Peerce might resent being replaced by someone fresh off the shuttle from Earth, even though Percy knew he’d earned his rank. But then, one of the best pieces of advice he'd been given, back when he’d had the stripe pinned on his dress uniform, had been to listen to the senior NCOs. They had forgotten more about making the unit work than he’d ever learned.

  The hatch opened, revealing a short man with a stern face. Not someone to cross, Percy realised, recalling the sergeant he’d met on the Royal Marine Insight Day. The man had looked like a gym teacher from hell; short, bald and terrifyingly loud. Peerce had the same attitude, but smoother. It took Percy a moment to remember that Peerce didn't have to deal with raw recruits.

  “Lieutenant,” Peerce said.

  “This is 2 Section’s new CO,” Hadfield said. “Take him, get him sorted out, then start exercising. I want 2 Section up to speed by the time we leave.”

  “Yes, sir,” Peerce said. He turned to look at Percy. “Coming, Corporal?”

  Percy nodded, then picked up his duffle and followed Peerce out of the tiny compartment.

  Chapter Six

  “Captain,” Midshipwoman Powell said. “Mr. Richards is here to see you.”

  John barely glanced up from his terminal. “Show him in,” he ordered. “Then bring us both tea and a snack. He must be hungry.”

  “You want something,” a familiar voice said. “Should I be worried?”

  “Not yet,” John said, as he rose. “It’s good to see you again, Philip.”

  “And you, sir,” Philip Richards said. “I was very surprised to be reassigned. The Royal Navy had me flying a desk for the foreseeable future.”

  John shook his hand, then motioned Richards into a seat. “I need someone with your ... unique skill set,” he said, as he sat down behind the desk. “In a fit of desperation, I chose to ask for you.”

  “You must have been desperate,” Richards said. He glanced up as Midshipwoman Powell entered the office, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. “Thank you, love.”

  John waited until Midshipwoman Powell had retreated, then leaned forward. “I need an assistant, Phil,” he said. “Someone’s set me up the bomb.”

  “That sounds bad,” Richards said. “And, in the interests of great justice, you sent for me?”

  “My XO is brilliant, but doesn’t have the slightest idea how to command respect,” John said. He picked up the datapad and waved it at Richards, meaningfully. “I don’t think I have to tell you just how many things remain undone, or unaccounted for, or ... well, you know how easily things can go wrong when someone doesn't do their work. There are enough hiccups here to cause real trouble when we’re well away from Earth.”

  “Shit,” Richards said. “They’ve been getting away with too much.”

  “Tell me about it,” John said. He put down the datapad and took a sip of tea. “I want you to serve as my ... well, my assistant.”

  “You want me to do everything your XO can't,” Richards said. “Without, I might add, the rank to actually do it.”

  “In one,” John said. “The Admiralty will allow me to give you a rank without a formal approval procedure, as long as we both understand it’s strictly temporary. You won’t be allowed to retire as a Lieutenant-Commander.”

  “I wouldn't want to retire as a Lieutenant-Commander,” Richards said, dryly. “Very well. I accept.”

  John smirked. “And to think I had a ten thousand word speech planned out to tell you why you should take the job.”

  “You can save it for your next attempt at hijacking an underling,” Richards said. He drained his teacup, then placed it to one side. “What would you like me to tackle first, sir?”

  “Everything,” John said. He picked up another datapad, glanced down at it and then passed it to Richards. “I hate paperwork as much as the next line officer, but half of these papers haven’t been done properly and it could prove a major headache, further down the line.”

  “I should coco,” Richards said, as he studied
the datapad. “When were half these components replaced?”

  John sighed. Military-grade components were ultra-reliable, but the Royal Navy insisted on replacing them regularly anyway, just in case the ship needed to go to war tomorrow. It wasn't something he grudged the beancounters - for once, the bureaucrats had a point - but he understood the temptation some crewmen would face to skip the paperwork. Replacing a single component could take minutes, while filling in the paperwork could take hours. And most of his crewmen knew it was a pointless endeavour, right up until the moment it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know,” John said. “Which is the problem, isn't it?”

  “You could have a rat onboard too,” Richards offered. “You know how much naval components are worth on the civilian market.”

  “Yeah,” John said. He leaned forward. “If there is a rat onboard, I expect you to find him and bring him to Captain’s Mast. But if it’s just laziness, I want them beaten into shape before they can cause a real disaster.”