by D. J. Holmes
What’s done is done, Mallory thought as he watched another chance to hurt the Indians slip away from the raiding British fleet. He had too many problems trying to step into the Captain’s shoes to dwell on his disappointment for long. He couldn’t help but feel that their failure to hurt the Indians would come back to bite them one day though.
*
Mallory stepped into James’ office. Rear Admiral Rooke had called another holo conference with his Captains. “Shall I leave?” James asked. He had been sitting at his desk reviewing the sensor data from the attack on Cauvery.
“No,” Mallory answered. “You can listen in. Maybe this time though, you can try a little bit more self-control,” he added with a smile.
“I’m glad you can joke about this,” James said. “Of course, it’s not your career on the line.”
The pair of them had spent many hours in James’ quarters during the trip from Magali to Cauvery. As well as discussing the running of Endeavour, they had played out a number of scenarios of what might happen when the fleet got back to British space. Both of them hoped that James would be reinstated. They had run a number of simulations of the battle over New Delhi, and no matter how they worked it out, they both agreed James had made the right decision. He had held Endeavour in her formation until the last second, risking his ship to fire one last salvo of flak cannon rounds at the Indian missiles targeting the flagship. Then, and only then, had he ordered Endeavour’s evasive maneuvers.
Still, they both knew from James’ court martial that the truth didn’t always matter. James and his uncle had enemies in the Navy and it was possible they could use this against him. Worse, though Mallory hadn’t said it to James, it was possible that Rooke had planned to do something like this to James all along. It had been clear from the outset that Rooke didn’t like James.
“Let’s just see what the Rear Admiral has to say,” Mallory replied. With a touch of a button, the holo projector started and Mallory and James were surrounded by the projection of a conference table with all the other Captains.
“I’m glad to see you could join us Acting Captain,” Rear Admiral Rooke said as soon as Mallory’s face appeared. “It’s not advisable for the most junior Captain in the fleet to keep us waiting.”
“My apologies Rear Admiral, Captains,” Mallory said as he looked around the table.
“I hope your new duties aren’t proving too much for you?” Rooke said with a hint of disdain in his voice.
“No Sir,” Mallory answered, “I just lost track of time, my apologies again.”
“Well, see that it doesn’t happen again,” Rooke said. “Or I will make sure it’s the last mistake you make as Acting Captain.”
“Now, let’s get down to business,” he continued as he changed his tone and turned to address the rest of the Captains. “You all know our next target, the Kharo colony. It’s a small colony with a population of less than ten million. Their GDP hardly provides anything to the Indian economy. Therefore, I propose we use it to get us a bit more distance from the Indian fleet. Khan will exit shift space heading for Kharo, we are going to head straight for the shift passage that leads to New Delhi. We can use the extra time it will take Khan to alter course to give us more breathing space in New Delhi to launch whatever attacks we wish as we pass through the system.”
As Rooke outlined his plans for the Kharo system, Mallory listened on silently. Inwardly, he wished one of the Captains would at least suggest that a small detachment of fast ships be sent to hit Kharo as they passed it. It would cost the fleet nothing to send the ships, and though the damage to the Indian economy would be small, it would be something. Yet, none of the Captains spoke up. Mallory was beginning to expect that these Captain’s conferences were more of a formality where Rooke could make sure that his subordinates understood his thinking rather than an opportunity for different perspectives to be aired and their merits discussed.
When Rooke was done, he thanked everyone for coming and disconnected himself from the conference. “Well that’s that,” Mallory said to James. “I guess Kharo is going to escape falling under our guns.”
“Yes, and how many other systems?” James asked.
“Maybe we can talk to the Flag Captain,” Mallory suggested. “She is the most senior captain in the fleet, maybe we can convince her and the other Captains to speak up in the next conference. If we present a unified front maybe Rooke will listen to us. If he won’t, perhaps we can convince the Captains to relieve Rooke of command. He is potentially costing us this war.”
“Have you discussed this with anyone else?” James asked quickly.
“No,” Mallory answered. “Of course not.”
“Good,” James replied. “See that you don’t, it will get you into trouble. Don’t you see how the rest of the Captains defer to Rooke? They respect him too much, or they fear him, but there is no way they will go against him. Many of them have served with him in the Fast Reaction Fleet for years. There’s nothing we can do; we just have to let things play out.”
“But we have to try something,” Mallory said. “Surely it’s our duty to try. If Rooke isn’t carrying out the orders he was given to the full extent of his capabilities, then we have to do something.”
“No we don’t,” James almost shouted. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last five days? There’s nothing we can do that I haven’t already gone over again and again. Nothing will work. We just have to do what we’ve been told to do. You’re the Captain now, you have to see to the ship. That’s the end of your responsibilities, leave the fleet to Rooke.”
Mallory was taken aback at James’ anger, though as he thought about it, he wasn’t surprised. How else was someone supposed to react in his situation? As much as he wanted to comfort his friend, he couldn’t think of anything to do. Instead, he got to his feet and saluted James. “If that’s all then Captain, I will get back to the ship.”
James looked momentarily hurt by Mallory’s abruptness. But the look quickly passed, “That will be all,” he said gruffly.
Turning and walking out of the office, Mallory hoped he would be able to find a way to cheer James up. But sitting here with him, allowing him to project his anger onto one of his friends wasn’t one of them. He would come back when the Captain had calmed down.
*
As Mallory left the briefing room, James sighed. He hadn’t meant to call Rooke a coward at the last Captains’ briefing. Yet the more he saw of the Rear Admiral, the more he thought the description fit. If Rooke went ahead with his plans, it would be the third time the Rear Admiral had avoided combat with the enemy. Though he said he was going to attack New Delhi, the chances were, as soon as they got there he would change his mind on that too.
Lifting the data pad he had been studying before Mallory arrived, he flung it against the office bulkhead. He could hardly bear it, target after target passing them by. While all the time, he was cooped up in his quarters, unable to see or talk to anyone unless they came to visit him. He knew his frustration was quickly turning into depression. He hadn’t felt like this since he received the news that Christine was going to marry Na. Worse, he knew it would be at least another month, or maybe two, before the fleet got back to British space. He had no hope of regaining his command.
Mallory tried to keep him in the loop and to involve him in the decision-making but there was only so much the First Lieutenant could do. He hadn’t meant to snap at his closest friend, but he wasn’t in the mood to apologize.
“Get me another coffee,” he growled loud enough that he knew his steward, Fox, would be able to hear him in the next room.
“Aye Sir,” Fox replied tentatively.
When he appeared with the drink, Fox didn’t meet his Captain’s eyes. He knew the last few days had been hard on his Captain, and he didn’t want to provoke him.
When James saw the fear in Fox’s actions he felt momentarily ashamed, but then his anger welled up again. It wasn’t his fault he was like this. This was Rooke’
s fault. Without acknowledging his steward, he grabbed the coffee and turned his back to Fox and lost himself in his thoughts.
*
24th July 2467AD, HMS Endeavour, Kharo system
As Endeavour exited shift space into the Kharo system, Mallory felt nervous. He couldn’t put his finger on why, Rooke’s latest plan almost guaranteed they wouldn’t see any combat. He planned to bypass the colony on the system’s second planet. His only targets were two small gas mining stations that orbited the eighth planet. Though they were important to the local economy, they kept the large freighters that moved around these parts of the Indian colonies supplied with fuel, they were all but irrelevant. Nevertheless, Mallory was not sitting comfortably.
“Put us back in our allotted position in the formation,” Mallory ordered Sub Lieutenant Jennings. Like all journeys through shift space, the fleet’s formation had been slightly disrupted by the reversion to real space.
“I’m already maneuvering us back into formation,” Jennings said.
“Signal from the flagship,” Sub Lieutenant King announced.
“New orders?” Mallory asked, when she did not tell Mallory what the communication said.
“I’ve sent the message to your command chair Captain,” King answered.
When Mallory read the message he understood King’s silence. Rear Admiral Rooke was demanding that Endeavour get back into formation immediately. Can’t he see that is exactly what we’re doing? Mallory thought. “Acknowledge the command,” he said to King.
Mallory had to grit his teeth to prevent his irritation finding a more verbal expression. This wasn’t the first message Rooke had sent to Endeavour demanding she speed up. It wasn’t even the second or third. During the five day journey from Cauvery to Kharo the fleet had to make eight course changes as it travelled through the twisting shift passage linking the two systems. Each time the fleet had come out of shift space to change direction, it had been necessary to form up again before jumping. It seemed as if Rooke was taking every opportunity he got to chasten the exploration cruiser and her crew. For all Mallory knew, he was sending the same message to every other ship in the fleet. Whilst that thought made him feel slightly better, upon reflection, it wasn’t much comfort. If Rooke was treating the whole fleet like this, then he was really letting the situation get the best of him.
“We’re in position,” Jennings reported.
“Good work Sub Lieutenant,” Mallory replied. “Keep station with the flagship. We should be heading towards the only gas giant in the system. Prepare to lay in a course.”
“Aye Sir,” Jennings replied.
Less than a minute after the fleet was fully formed up, the order came to accelerate towards the gas giant. As luck would have it, the gas giant lay almost directly between the shift passage the fleet had just exited and the shift passage to New Delhi.
*
Four hours later, right on cue, Endeavour’s gravimetric sensors lit up like a Christmas tree. “New contacts, the Sub Lieutenant who was on duty at the sensor station called out. “It’s the Indian fleet.”
Mallory sat forward in the command chair as the contacts appeared on the main holo-display. “They’re not heading towards the colony,” he said. “What vector are they accelerating along?”
“It looks like at least two thirds of the fleet is accelerating straight for the shift passage back towards New Delhi,” the Sub Lieutenant reported. “Though there are some ships that seem to be on a different trajectory.”
As Mallory watched, the plot from the gravimetric sensors gained more clarity and it was obvious why Admiral Khan had split his fleet. The fastest two thirds of his fleet were speeding straight for the shift passage to New Delhi. Either he was planning to jump ahead of the British fleet and wait for them at New Delhi, or he wanted to intercept the British fleet before they could jump out of the system. The other third of his fleet had come out of shift space angled towards the colony. As soon as they detected the British fleet was not heading towards the colony they had altered course.
“Captain,” Sub Lieutenant King said, “we just received a new message from the flagship. Rear Admiral Rooke is calling for another Captains’ conference. He wants to see his captains immediately.”
“Acknowledge the order,” Mallory said. This should be interesting, he thought as he stood and walked out of the bridge.
As he stepped into James’ office, Mallory saw that James was already there. “You know everything that is going on I presume?”
“Yes,” James replied. “It’s time to see if my guess is correct.”
“For all our sakes, I hope you’re wrong,” Mallory said. “Though, I’m not entirely sure I remember the last time you were in fact wrong.”
“I hope I’m wrong too,” James said. “Otherwise today may go very badly.”
Despite his isolation, James had been trying to find something useful to do. One of the things he had devoted himself to doing was trying to understand Rear Admiral Rooke better. He had spent hours reading over every report from Admiral Rooke’s early career. One thing had stood out, the Rear Admiral had never actually commanded a fleet in battle. Though he had scored very highly in all the tactical simulations he had taken part in, even during his time as a Captain he had never seen real combat.
James knew that Rooke’s plan at New Delhi had been bold and audacious, and if it had paid off, it would have looked like a tactical triumph. Yet it hadn’t, and though James was coming to loath Rooke he had a little sympathy for the Rear Admiral. If James’ first experience of combat had been as an Admiral in charge of such a large fleet, and his plans and actions had led to the destruction of a heavy cruiser and the loss of so many lives, he would have begun to doubt himself and possibly even act the way Rooke was acting now.
Yet, that didn’t change things. And so, as Mallory came into his office to take part in the conference, he grabbed Mallory’s hand as the First Lieutenant was about to switch on the holo projector. “If no one else says anything, then you need to. This is a perfect opportunity. Rooke could turn the fleet and engage the slower Indian ships. We would be able to take them before Admiral Khan could get back to support them. Heck, even if Rooke just dispatched our slowest ships back towards Cauvery, they could go on some raiding missions on their own. That would free our fastest ships to speed to the New Delhi shift passage, we would easily make it ahead of the Indian fleet. From there we could attack New Delhi, or head back to British space to join the main attack force going to liberate Haven”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mallory said once James was finished. “Though you know Rooke just as well as I do. But I’ll try. I promise.”
Satisfied, James let go of Mallory’s hand and switched on the holo projector before slipping to the back of the room so that no one else would see him.
“We don’t have much time,” Rear Admiral Rooke said once every Captain had joined the conference. “We need to act fast, if we don’t Admiral Khan’s fast fleet will catch us. We may be able to beat it but they will hammer us hard and the chances of us escaping Indian colonial space will be slim. I can’t have that on my conscience. So I need suggestions now, what can we do to get ourselves out of this situation?”
“We shouldn’t dismiss engaging the Indian fleet so quickly,” Captain Blyth of the medium cruiser Ferocious said. “The Indians are presenting us with an opportunity we might not get again. If you just go by missile numbers, the Indian fast fleet is a match for ours. However, we all know our missile technology and point defenses are superior to the Indians. We could take them; we just have to commit to it.”
“I said we are not engaging the Indians,” Rooke said sternly. “I’m not repeating myself again, my orders are to get this fleet back to British space intact. Running away from the Indians is exactly what the Admiralty wants me to do, they are to think they’ve beaten us.”
“We could increase our maximum speed,” Captain Ramirez said. “The slower ships in the fleet are currently slowing us
down. If my Hawk was able to go at her full speed, we could easily beat the Indians to the shift passage to New Delhi.”
“That will be inviting disaster,” Rooke’s Flight Captain Sarah Valance said. “If we force the slower ships to exceed the maximum velocity we’ll be putting them all at risk.”
“They can deploy their gaseous shields, that should give them plenty of protection,” Ramirez responded.
“It’s still too risky,” Valance said. “We need to come up with another plan.”
When no one else looked like they were going to speak up, James reached over and nudged Mallory’s shoulder. “We could copy Khan’s tactics,” Mallory said reluctantly. It wasn’t that he disagreed with James’ idea, he just didn’t want to be the one that had to speak up in front of all the Captains.
“If we split off the slower ships now, they should be able to turn back towards Cauvery,” he continued. “With a bit of luck they could outmaneuver the slower Indian fleet and head back into the Indian colonies on a raiding mission. Our fastest ships could then beat the Indians to the shift passage to New Delhi. From there we can attack the colony and then make it back to British space safely. Khan will be forced to follow us, leaving our slower ships to wreak havoc among the Indian colonies.”