The First Space Lord nodded to the hologram. “The remainder of the fleet is currently falling back on Zheng He, a Chinese colony and fleet base. The Chinese didn’t have that long to turn the base into a fortress, but they’ve done enough to give us a reasonable chance of stalling the virus long enough for us to bring new weapons and starships online. We may not be able to win this war by outproducing the virus, Captain, but we may be able to develop new weapons and suchlike to tip the balance in our favour.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said. “I saw the projections.”
“And absolutely none of them are remotely cheerful.” The First Space Lord grimaced, as if he had bitten into something rotten. “The best-case projections give the virus a major production advantage over us - over all of us, British and Americans and everyone else put together. Their sheer willingness to deploy vast numbers of long-range missiles alone ... well, let’s just say we may be heavily outgunned. Our only real advantage is, I think, a certain degree of tactical flexibility and we may lose that if it absorbs more of our people.”
“Perhaps, sir,” Stephen said. “It’s difficult to predict how their starships will react to any given situation. Sometimes they’ll come boiling after us, the moment they catch a sniff of us; sometimes they’ll just ignore us until we make ourselves impossible to ignore.”
“And there’s no way to know which choice they’ll make until they do,” the First Space Lord agreed. “They may also believe that they don’t need to make any changes to their tactical doctrine.”
Stephen nodded in grim agreement. He’d studied decision-making during his time at the academy and his instructors had pointed out hundreds of examples of human commanders making the same mistakes, time and time again, because they didn’t face any personal consequences for their failure. They cared more about public relations - and the opinions of their superiors - than about the men under their command. It was easier and safer to send the men into the meatgrinder, time and time again, than to suggest ways to outflank the enemy and save lives. The virus might feel the same way. It might care as little for the loss of a single starship as Stephen cared for a single strand of hair.
And if what they’re doing worked in every previous war they’ve fought, he told himself, they may see no reason to change.
“On the other hand, we can be reasonably sure they’ll throw everything they have at Zheng He as soon as they realise that the MNF has stopped running,” the First Space Lord said. “They already know the fleet has been badly weakened.”
Stephen nodded. “They must know.”
“Quite.” The First Space Lord tapped a switch. “There have been a number of high-level discussions between senior military officers over the past few days. We were contemplating reinforcements for the MNF even before the virus launched its second offensive against Falkirk. Invincible and a number of other starships will be dispatched to Zheng He to back up the fleet and hold the line.”
“Sir.” Stephen took a breath and started again. “Sir, Invincible is in no condition to return to the front. Our hull plating has been badly damaged, our starfighter squadrons have been shot to ribbons ...”
The First Space Lord held up a hand. “Captain, under normal circumstances, I’d be happy to give you, your ship and your crew a long period to recuperate. I’d even push for two-thirds of your crew to be reassigned to other ships while Invincible is put back together. But now ... we are short on starships that can be rushed to the front. The politicians are unlikely to allow us to draw more ships from the home defence formations, particularly not now. We can only throw a handful of starships into the front line. Invincible is one of them.”
Stephen swallowed, hard. “How long do we have?”
“The discussions are still underway, but I think you’ll receive your formal orders by the end of the day.” The First Space Lord frowned. “And I think you’ll be told to depart within a week - ten days, at the most. Can your ship be readied in time?”
“There is no way we can return to full fighting trim in ten days,” Stephen said, flatly. He forced himself to remember the last report from the engineers, after they’d surveyed the damage and planned the repairs. “If we had emergency priority, with repair work going on around the clock, we might be able to get up to eighty, perhaps ninety, percent of readiness. But that might be dangerously optimistic.”
“Probably too optimistic,” the First Space Lord said. He’d served a term in the shipyards, if Stephen recalled correctly. The Vanguard and Invincible classes had practically been his brainchildren. “But you will have emergency priority. I’ll make sure you’re assigned all the workers and supplies you need.”
“That will be difficult,” Stephen predicted. “Home Fleet will want ...”
“Home Fleet will have to put up with it,” the First Space Lord said. “We must keep the virus away from Earth, at all costs. If that means sending half-repaired ships into battle ...”
He studied the holographic chart for a long moment. “Our allies are redeploying their ships to support us, Captain, but it will be several months before they can arrive in force. If we can hold the line that long, we should be able to get the remainder of our industrial base into full war production and start churning out new weapons. The boffins are sure they can come up with something to even the odds.”
Stephen didn’t bother to hide his scepticism. The boffins had been promising all kinds of technological advances for years, from long-range energy weapons that could slice through a starship like a hot knife through butter to forcefields that could protect a starship from a direct nuclear strike, but so far none of the advances had ever materialised. They’d inched forward slowly, only jumping forward when they had a piece of alien technology to reverse-engineer and put into mass production. There was no point in holding one’s breath for a technological silver bullet. The virus would have to be stopped the old-fashioned way.
And we know it doesn’t have access to super-advanced technology, either, he thought. It wasn’t a particularly reassuring thought. It just has more than enough starships to crush us by sheer weight of numbers.
“There are some promising ideas,” the First Space Lord said, calmly. “Quite a few technological advances seemed impossible until they became reality.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said.
“But there is a second concern,” the First Space Lord added. “It is quite likely that the officer in command of the reinforcements will be a Russian.”
Stephen blinked. “What? But ...”
The First Space Lord nodded, curtly. “Believe me, I am aware of the political implications. There are too many unanswered questions surrounding Dezhnev and whatever orders she might have been given for me to feel happy about any of this. However, the Russians will be making the largest contribution. They practically have to be given the command.”
“Sir.” Stephen forced himself to calm down. “Can we trust them?”
“I trust them to know where their own best interests lie,” the First Space Lord said. “They have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by betraying humanity to any alien foe, particularly the virus. They’re not going to be playing Vichy Russia when the virus doesn’t need collaborators. The risks of working with them, Captain, are far exceeded by the dangers of not working with them. We need to leave the past in the past and work together to save humanity from destruction.”
Stephen lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“That said, you are to keep an eye out for trouble,” the First Space Lord added. “And report to me if you sense anything out of kilter.”
“Yes, sir.” Stephen cursed under his breath. The orders would be difficult, if not impossible, to follow. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
The First Space Lord smiled, briefly. “Do your best,” he said. “Admiral Svetlana Zadornov is known for being competent, as well as a patriot. You can work with her.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said, again. “Shouldn’t it be Zadornova?”
“I believe that Admiral Zadornov prefers the masculine form of her name,” the First Space Lord said. “She is certainly never called Zadornova in official dispatches. And, given where she is, you can assume she’s more than merely competent.”
“She wouldn’t have reached high rank without being extremely capable,” Stephen agreed, calmly. It was unusual to encounter a woman in the Russian military, let alone one who held such a high rank. “And she was in the Battle of Earth.”
“And received medals from all of the Great Powers,” the First Space Lord said. “She was one of the first officers to receive the Star of Terra. There aren’t many other officers, male or female, who have been honoured by the entire planet.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephen said. “I won’t take her lightly.”
“No,” the First Space Lord agreed. “If nothing else, bear in mind she will be commanding a bigger ship.”
Stephen had to smile. “Yes, sir.”
“You will also be playing host to a starfighter squadron - perhaps more than one - from another nation,” the First Space Lord added. “We’re still smoothing out the details. The Germans have offered a starfighter squadron or two, but the French and Poles are throwing out objections and the Germans might wind up being reassigned to home defence duties instead. I’d hoped for an American squadron, but it looks like they’re being reserved for their own ships. The Japanese are the only other prospects and they have colony worlds to defend, too.”
“And there’s little prospect of those worlds being ignored,” Stephen mused. He studied the starchart for a moment, thinking fast. “Have we managed to draw anything from the captured datacores yet?”
“The boffins are still working on it.” The First Space Lord looked displeased. “The current theory is that the virus stored astrographic information within its cells, rather than ... well, anything we would recognise as a datacore. They haven’t managed to pull anything legible from the captured ships. On the other hand” - he shrugged - “they might simply not have figured out how to work the system yet. Alien technology is always difficult to crack.”
Stephen nodded. The Tadpoles might not have been human, but they’d been reasonably humanoid. Their computers had been different, yet they hadn’t been that different. The virus, on the other hand, was completely alien. Who knew how a living virus thought? The boffins had been sure they’d crack the datacores, but how long would it take? And how would the boffins even know they’d succeeded?
Starcharts are understandable, he told himself firmly. And we can pick them out by matching the data against our files.
“I wish we didn’t have to send you back into action so quickly,” the First Space Lord said, grimly. “The exigencies of war demand it ...”
“I understand,” Stephen said. “There will be ... issues ... of course, but we will cope.”
“And I’m sorry about the lack of shore leave for your crew,” the First Space Lord added. “It won’t do wonders for morale.”
“No,” Stephen agreed. “We knew what we were doing when we took the oath, sir. We’ll cope.”
He winced, inwardly. He didn’t fear a mutiny - the Royal Navy hadn’t suffered a mutiny for hundreds of years - but he knew what a lack of shore leave could do to a crew. They would start to suffer, start to slow down ... too many experienced men and women would decline to re-enlist when their original terms of service came to an end. Better civvy street, they’d say, than the military. Civvy street wouldn’t jerk them around and force them to remain on duty indefinitely ... he shook his head. No one would be discharged during the war, not when trained officers and crew were desperately needed. They’d just have to suck it up.
And I’ll just have to hope that they can cope, he told himself. And that we can cope with any problems that might arise.
“Very good, Captain,” the First Space Lord said. “And good luck.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Three
“There isn’t anything on the datanet,” Corporal Glen Hammersmith said. “The whole planet has gone quiet.”
“Maybe they’re all dead,” Corporal Roger Tindal offered. “Or infected.”
Captain Alice Campbell rubbed her eyes as she forced herself to throw off the last vestiges of sleep and get up. The shuttle flight shouldn’t have been more than a couple of hours, but the emergency on Earth - whatever the hell it was - had forced the pilot to take a long detour before resuming his original course. Alice was no stranger to being told to hurry up and wait - or being ordered to fill out hundreds of forms, only to be told afterwards that half of them weren’t necessary - but she had to admit there was something odd about this order. They were a long way from Earth. Whatever was happening on the surface couldn’t have much to do with them.
Unless the virus really has infected the entire planet, she thought. She stood, gritting her teeth. Her body felt ... strange, as if it wasn’t completely hers. It might have reached the homeworld before we knew what we were facing.
She glanced at the displays, keeping her face under tight control. One showed an actress running from a monster, screaming her head off; the second was the live feed from the BBC, probably already hours out of date. She wondered, idly, which one was more realistic. The girl was wearing a dress that should have tripped her up a dozen times in the last few minutes, but the BBC wasn’t known for detailed investigative reporting these days. It was probably repeating the government’s talking points, whatever the hell they were. The crisis, whatever it was, had only just started. The government itself probably didn't know what its talking points were, yet. It would take hours, at least, for an official statement to emerge.
“The entire planet couldn’t be infected,” she said, finally. “Did they sound the system-wide alert?”
“No, Captain,” Hammersmith said. “There doesn’t seem to be any alert off Earth.”
So far, Alice thought. They were two light-hours from Earth. The BBC’s talking head had finished his babbling two hours ago. They might have already sounded the alert for the rest of the solar system.
She keyed a switch, bringing up the long-range sensors. The solar system looked normal. There were no vast fleets of alien starships crashing through the tramlines, no sudden silence as asteroid bases and industrial nodes shut down hastily to avoid being detected ... she shook her head at the thought. The virus probably knew everything its unwilling hosts had known. It probably knew precisely where to find humanity’s industrial nodes. A conventional foe would set out to destroy them, as Alice and her team had destroyed an alien shipyard months ago, but the virus might think it could take the shipyards intact instead. Alice had a terrible feeling that the virus might be right.
The intercom bleeped. “We’ve just received permission to approach the base,” the pilot said, calmly. “We’ll be docking in thirty minutes.”
“He probably means thirty hours,” Hammersmith stage-whispered.
“I heard that,” the pilot said. He sounded more amused than indignant. He probably hadn’t enjoyed the long flight either. “And they’re very insistent on us docking as soon as possible.”
“I’ll go freshen up,” Alice said. “You two ... get ready.”
She turned and made her way down to the washroom. It felt weird to have only three passengers in a shuttle designed for an entire company of marines, but there were some definite advantages. She splashed water on her face, then peered at herself in the mirror. The tired-looking woman staring back at her was almost a stranger. She touched her close-cropped hair, silently wondering why she hadn’t had it permanently shaved after she’d been told she could return to active duty. The marks on her pale skin were a grim reminder of how hard she’d worked to rebuild muscle mass over the last couple of weeks. No one would have blamed her for giving up, she’d been told, but she knew that wasn’t true. She would have blamed herself.
And then they summon me here, she thought, grimly. She’d thought she was free of the doctors, free of their prodding as they tried to figure ou
t why she’d survived being infected; she’d thought she had her own life back ... although, she conceded with a wry smile, she’d chosen the wrong career if she wanted freedom. What on Earth do they want?
She took a long breath, gathering herself. The orders had been clear. She was to report to the asteroid base, bringing with her two men to serve as an escort. Alice hadn’t been sure what to make of it. She was hardly a high-value target, hardly the sort of person to draw attention from would-be kidnappers; she wasn’t even a high-ranking military officer who might have reasonably expected bodyguards. Who was going to threaten her? And, if she was under arrest, they would have sent a platoon of redcaps to escort her to jail. They wouldn’t have asked her to pick her own guards ...
A quiver ran through the shuttle. She put her thoughts aside as she opened the hatch and made her way back to her seat. The display showed a pair of starfighters falling into escort position, ready to engage if the shuttle turned hostile. Alice rather suspected that the precaution was designed to calm civilian nerves, rather than do anything effective. If someone had sneaked a nuke onto the shuttle, there would be no way to detect it before the shuttle docked and - by then - it would be too late. Alice had no doubt of it.
The Right of the Line Page 3
