“They’re unarmed,” Richards said. “I've sealed off the whole compartment and Major Hadfield has placed two Marines on guard duty outside. They shouldn't be able to break through the hatch, sir, let alone escape. If any of them do cause trouble, we can either handcuff them to the bulkhead or simply drug them into a stupor.”
“I would prefer not to keep them drugged indefinitely,” Stewart said, sharply. “We don’t have the tools to freeze them safely, sir, and drugging someone for long periods can cause dangerous complications.”
“As long as they’re secure,” John said. “And their commander?”
“He’s in the brig, sir,” Hadfield reminded him. “He can be held there without guard, although I do have someone watching him and the women. I have a feeling the women may crack and tell us something important, if we take care of them.”
John felt his eyes narrowed. “How badly were they treated?”
Stewart shrugged. “Physically, they’re in no worse state than the men,” he said. “Mentally, they’re in a very dark place. I don’t think they were actually raped, sir, but they were certainly very aware of the possibility. I saw similar cases in some of the worse-run refugee camps after the bombardment.”
“I see,” John said. “Is there anything we can do for them?”
“I’ve assigned my nurse, Pomona Scott, to tend to them,” Stewart said. “They would probably respond better to another woman right now. In the long term, we may be able to get them talking to Lieutenant Forbes or Lieutenant Logan. However, they are likely to be a screwed-up mess, thanks to the way they were treated. I would not count on getting anything useful out of them.”
“Then we won't,” John said. “Mike, how long will it take you to deal with the enemy ship?”
“An hour, no more,” Johnston said. “We brought most of the useful material over with us, when we did the first sweep. If you don't mind, I’d prefer to vent the ship’s atmosphere completely. There are rats and cockroaches breeding down in the depths of her hull.”
“As you see fit,” John said. The Russians had allowed themselves to go to pieces ... he wondered, absently, if he would have done any better. If Warspite had been alone, with the certain knowledge that they would all be hung if they returned home, how would he have coped with the situation? “We’ll depart in one hour. Mr. Armstrong?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to plot out a course for the new tramline, but - again - I want to enter the system from the edge,” John ordered. “If there are two prowling ships out there, I really do not want to be detected.”
“Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.
“I can plot out possible engagements, sir,” Howard offered.
“Just remember that war is a democracy,” John reminded him. It had been hammered into his head, time and time again, that no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy. The Russians, desperate to escape detection and capture, might do something unpredictable. “The enemy gets a vote too.”
He looked at Richards. “Ready a second beacon,” he added. “Again, copy our logs and sensor records, then launch it here. If something happens to us, at least the next ship will have a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.”
“Aye, sir,” Richards said.
But the Russians will know they’ve been detected, John thought. They’d know when their frigate failed to report home, wherever ‘home’ happened to be. What will they do then?
He scowled. Or will they assume that she merely ran out of luck and suffered a catastrophic disaster? Or is that wishful thinking?
“Good work, everyone,” he finished, putting the thought aside. It had been good work. Warspite’s crew had faced their first real enemy and defeated him soundly. “Dismissed.”
He rose as his crew filed out of the compartment, then tapped a switch. The holographic display changed to show the view from the ship’s hull; the Russian frigate hanging in the foreground, the unmoving stars behind. It was astonishing just how well the Russian starship had held up, John couldn't help thinking. Five years without a shipyard, without even a new set of spare parts, and the vessel had still been reasonably functional. If she’d had a carrier accompanying her, John suspected, she could have kept going indefinitely.
The crew must have been on the verge of madness, he thought. There had been studies done on the effects of isolation in space, but apart from the early space travellers, there had been few cases of people being truly isolated, or being more than a week from safe harbour. But the Russians had not only been months from Earth, they’d known they couldn't go home again. Perhaps that was why they had turned to piracy. They’d not seen any other way to survive.
His intercom bleeped. “Captain,” Armstrong said. “Our course is prepared and laid in.”
“Wait for the engineers to return to the ship,” John said, dryly. Hiding the Russian frigate might come in handy - at least, the ship’s hull would be useful, if she were towed back to Cromwell. “And then we can set course for the next system.”
And hope, he added silently, that the rest of the pirates await us there.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“The star’s another G2, sir,” Howard said.
John allowed himself a breath. “Planets?”
“Nine, sir,” Howard said, after a moment. “Eight of them are definitely rocky worlds.”
He sucked in a breath. “Captain,” he said, sharply. “There are seven tramlines in the system!”
John looked up at the display, feeling a sudden shiver of excitement. Seven tramlines to seven potential destinations alone would be a worthwhile find, but combined with the presence of a life-bearing world - assuming there was a life-bearing world in the system - it would set the crew up for life. The British Crown would claim the system, set up a colony and charge transit fees for starships using the tramlines. It would do the economy a power of good.
“Impressive,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Can you pick up any traces of technological presence?”
“Negative, sir,” Howard said.
But that meant nothing, John knew. The Russian refugees presumably wouldn't want to call attention to their presence by emitting radio signals. They’d only stumbled across the captured frigate through luck. The only way to confirm the Russians weren't in the system was to search it, thoroughly. He leaned back in his command chair and waited as more and more data appeared in the holographic display. Two of the rocky worlds were well within the life-bearing zone, not too close and not too far from the local star.
That means nothing too, he reminded himself. Titan and Clarke are both further from their primary stars and they have life, if not intelligent life.
“Keep us in stealth, but take us towards the nearest planet,” he ordered. “Best possible speed.”
He contemplated the system’s prospects as Warspite slowly slid further towards the star. There was no gas giant, which explained why the Russians had been mining in the nearest system, but there was an asteroid belt and eight presumably barren rocky worlds. It would give the system a hefty boost, once a colony had been established; it was possible, judging from the tramlines, that one of them ran back towards Pegasus. The British Crown would snatch all the worthwhile real estate in the sector before anyone else knew what had been discovered. He smiled at the thought, then contemplated the image of the rocky world. The ship’s telescopes revealed that it had an oxygen-rich atmosphere, which almost certainly meant it was Earth-compatible. Britain’s claim to the sector would be upheld by international law.
“Captain,” Forbes said. “I just picked up a brief flicker of radio chatter.”
John looked at her. “From the Russians?”
“I'm not sure,” Forbes said. “The source was somewhere near the second planet, but the radio system seemed almost primitive.”
John frowned. Were the Russians trying to set up a tech base of their own? They’d need one, if they wanted to establish a proper colony, but it would also run the risk of being detected by outsi
de powers. If they truly wanted to hide, they’d set up the colony on the surface, then send their ships into the sun. But who would want to give up technology to live on the ground like savages?
People who happen to be desperate, he thought. And perhaps people they want to keep under control.
“Continue to monitor the system,” he ordered. “Mr. Howard, launch a stealth probe towards the planet on a ballistic trajectory. I want to know what we’re about to encounter.”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said. He keyed his console. Moments later, the probe shot away from Warspite, plunging further into the system. “Probe away, sir.”
John nodded, then forced himself to relax. It would be hours before the probe got close enough to learn more about the planet, but he couldn't leave the bridge, not now. He checked the reports from Main Engineering - and Commander Watson’s notes on the new tramline - in the hopes of diverting himself from his worries. But there was nothing special about the tramline, save for its destination. The drive matrix had barely needed to be recalibrated to allow them to make a safe transit, without the crew throwing up on the deck.
The seconds ticked slowly away, until the first report came back. “Captain,” Howard said, “there are three starships orbiting the planet.”
“Show me,” John ordered.
The display changed to show the live feed from the probe, beamed back to Warspite through a laser beam. Two large starships hung in high orbit; a smaller ship, clearly a sister to the frigate Warspite had already captured, hung lower. John had no difficulty in recognising Vesper; he’d seen her outlines often enough while he’d been reviewing her files. The massive bulk freighter looked dead and cold, even her running lights deactivated. John hoped - prayed - that meant the Russians had shipped the colonists to the surface. Vesper couldn't have remained habitable for very long if her life support had been powered down.
“She’s definitely Vesper, sir,” Howard confirmed. “I have a visual on her hull.”
“At least we know where they went,” Richards muttered. “They have to be here.”
“Probably,” John agreed. The Russians would have problems shipping so many colonists elsewhere without the giant freighter. “And the other ship?”
“I’m not sure,” Howard confessed. “Captain, the war book flags it as an assault transport, but it doesn't quite match the profile.”
John leaned forward. The Russian ship was slightly smaller than Vesper, bristling with shuttles and sensor blisters. It looked to have been designed to insert troops on a planetary surface, without relying on bases already established on the ground. The Royal Navy would use a fleet carrier for the task, if it had to carry out an amphibious offensive from space, but the Russians tended to use cruder ships. They might have seen value in building a specialised design.
And it wouldn't have been expected to join the battleline at New Russia, he thought, grimly. Her commander might have beaten feet out of the system as soon as the battle went badly.
He keyed his terminal. “Major Hadfield, I need an assessment,” he said. “How many troops might the Russians have under their command?”
“Unknown, sir,” Hadfield said. “I would speculate, at most, a couple of thousand, but I can’t see so many choosing to desert Mother Russia.”
And the ship could have been empty when the battle began, John thought. They wouldn't have risked so many troops, not when they might have been needed on the surface.
He shook his head, then returned his attention to the display as more and more details popped up in front of him. The Russians seemed to be operating on very low power, which suggested their ships were reaching the end of their endurance, but he knew better than to take that for granted. A small team of workmen seemed to be swarming over Vesper, cannibalising the ship to help keep the other two going; he wondered, absently, just how long the Russians thought they had before something irreplaceable snapped. Vesper was a civilian ship, even if she had spent time in the RFA. She didn't carry many military-grade components that could be reused.
The second Russian frigate seemed to be in better condition, he decided. It was something of a mystery why the Russians hadn't sent it to mine for fuel, unless he was wrong and the Russian ship was incapable of leaving orbit. He considered the problem for a long moment, then dismissed it. There were more important matters at hand.
“Mr. Howard, they must have a colony on the surface,” he said. He wouldn't have kept the prisoners in orbit, not if it could be avoided. There would be too great a chance of a successful uprising. “Can you locate it?”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said. “The probe is entering orbit now ...” He broke off. “Fuck me!”
“Mr. Howard,” Richards snapped!
“Sorry, sir,” Howard said. He sounded stunned. “Captain, I think you should take a look at this.”
John leaned forward as images appeared in front of him. The planet was unusual, he noted; unlike Earth, there was more land than sea. A handful of giant lakes could be seen, but they weren't interconnected. There was no reason why a single land power couldn't rise to dominate the entire planet ... his thoughts trailed away as Howard focused the feed from the probe. There were settlements dotted all over the planet. For a moment, John refused to grasp what he was seeing. Even Terra Nova, Washington or Britannia didn't have such a vast network of settlements. It would take centuries to build up such a vast population, even with the baby boom following the war.
And then it clicked.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “They’re aliens!”
“Yes, sir,” Howard said.
John felt his heart pounding in his chest. It wasn't impossible to believe, not after the Tadpoles, that a third world might develop intelligent life. There were quite a few worlds where, if evolution had taken a few more steps, it might have produced intelligent life before the human race arrived to foreclose the possibility. But somehow, coming face to face with the reality of a third intelligent race left him breathless. He’d never seriously expected to discover a non-human race on Warspite’s first cruise.
“Pull as much data as you can from orbit,” John ordered. His voice sounded strange in his ears, as if he was as stunned as his tactical officer. “And route it through the Marines as well as the tactical department.”
Richards had another concern. “Do they pose a threat?”
“I don't think so,” Howard said, after a moment. “There’s no sign of steam power, let alone radio signals. I’d say this world is at roughly the same level as Britain, in the days of the Spanish Armada. But there's no way to be sure. The Russians had several years to work with the natives.”
“Shit,” Richards mused. “Captain, the Russians could have given the natives human technology.”
John nodded in agreement. There were laws against sharing human technology with aliens, but it wasn't as if the Russian refugees could be hung more than once, no matter how many crimes they’d committed. For the first time, he found himself seriously considering backing off and sneaking back to Pegasus to whistle up help. Aliens placed a whole different gloss on the scene. Warspite was no survey ship, with a crew of sociologists who might be able to make contact with the aliens ...
But Vesper and her colonists are here, he thought. We can't abandon them, not now.
The regulations might have been written before First Contact, but they still held force. A starship that encountered intelligent alien life, particularly spacefaring alien life, was to attempt to avoid contact and report home, placing the contact mission in the hands of professionals. In the event of contact being unavoidable, the starship was to ensure that the newcomers learned nothing about the human sphere; if necessary, the ship was to destroy itself rather than risk its databases falling into unfriendly hands. And nothing, absolutely nothing, was to be shared with the aliens without permission from Earth. If the Russians had made contact, if the Russians had given the aliens human technology, they’d broken one of the few rules shared by all spacefaring nations.
The Native Americans want a planet of their own, he thought, recalling the political debate that had consumed the United States, just prior to First Contact. But is there enough of their society left to let them form something their pre-Columbus ancestors would recognise?
[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Page 30