The Right of the Line

by Christopher Nuttall

  He put the thought aside for later consideration as he turned and walked back through the hatch, down towards the briefing room. It wasn’t going to be easy dealing with starfighter pilots from three different nations, even though ... he shook his head, dismissively. He didn’t have a choice. He’d hoped to get three British squadrons instead of just two, but they simply weren’t available. The shortage of trained personnel was so acute that he couldn’t even dig up a spare squadron leader or CAG from somewhere. It would have been nice to lose one of his two hats.

  The briefing compartment was full to bursting when he walked in the door, the newly-graduated pilots bullshitting about how many hours they’d flown and how many enemy starfighters they’d blown out of space while the older pilots indulgently listened. Richard studied the latter for a long moment, wondering how many of them would be trouble. It was never easy to call up the reserves, if only because they had to leave their jobs at a moment’s notice. The Americans had more reservists, he’d been told, than the Royal Navy, but he would be surprised if they didn’t have similar problems. It was astonishing how many businesses were held together by combat vets.

  Monica whistled, loudly. “Commander on deck!”

  Silence fell. The pilots hastily scrambled to their feet. Richard allowed his eyes to wander over them, silently noting who wore their uniforms properly and who had allowed themselves to be a little slapdash. The latter was often a sign of a lack of attention to detail, suggesting the pilot might be careless in combat. Richard winced, inwardly, to note how many of those that there were. It wasn’t going to be easy to iron out the kinks before they had to go into combat.

  “Be seated,” he ordered, curtly.

  He took a moment to allow them to sit, then continued. “First, welcome onboard HMS Invincible. For those of you who don’t know me” - as far as he knew, none of the newcomers knew him - “I am Wing Commander Richard Redbird, currently serving as both Commander Air Group and Squadron Leader A. This will be somewhat unwieldy in combat, but we seem to have no choice. We will therefore learn to cope.”

  “Damn right,” someone muttered.

  Richard ignored the interjection. “We have orders to leave this system and deploy to the front lines in a week, ten days at the most. The ship is currently crammed with shipyard workers who have been drafted in from all over the system to get us ready to leave on time. You, fortunately, will not be involved with repairing the ship. Instead” - he allowed the word to hang in the air for a few seconds - “you will be training extensively, training as you have never done before. By the time we leave, I want us to be ready to work together to kick enemy arse. I want you to make them sorry they ever heard of us.

  “Those of you who have previous experience, before you left your respective services, are going to help the maggots learn. We don’t have time to hold your hands. Yes, I know; hardly any of you have experience on a ship like this. Deal with it. If you have problems, I expect you to cope with them like mature adults. If not ... believe me, I will be your worst fucking nightmare. We simply don’t have time to mess around. We don’t have time.”

  Richard made a show of checking his watch. “It is now 1345. I want you - all of you - in the simulators at 1445. Get your bunks, get some coffee, have a shower, take a shit ... do whatever you have to do, as long as you are in your simulators by 1445. Any questions?”

  He waited, but there were none. “Very good,” he said. “One other thing. If you have anything - and I mean anything - that happens to be forbidden by Royal Navy regulations, which you can download on your terminals if you aren’t already familiar with them, get rid of it. Put it in the bins or sell it to the yard dogs, no questions asked. I don’t care, as long as it isn’t with you when we depart. Whatever it is, get rid of it.

  “Squadron leaders, stay behind. Everyone else, dismissed.”

  “Follow the blue lines to your bunks,” Monica said, as the pilots rose. “First come, first served.”

  Richard allowed himself to relax as the pilots filed out of the compartment. They looked a little subdued, now that he’d made his speech. He hoped that would last, at least until they went through the first set of training simulations. Richard had designed them himself, carefully crafting the engagement to give the enemy a set of unexpected advantages. Anyone who went into battle with a cocky faith that they couldn’t lose was in for an awful shock.

  Better they die a thousand simulated deaths than die once, for real, he told himself. It was hard not to escape the sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t he given the same lecture before? How many of those pilots who’d listened to him, back then, had died? No matter what I tell them, no matter what I say, some of them are going to die.

  He gritted his teeth, then turned to face the squadron leaders. He hadn’t had anything like enough time to do more than skim their files, but he’d learnt enough. Lieutenant-Colonel Darren Vargas and Lieutenant-Colonel Tyrone Leif commanded the two American squadrons, one USMC rather than USN. Richard hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. The British Army and the Royal Marines worked closely together, but the United States Marine Corps was practically a second army in its own right. Beside them, Lieutenant-Colonel Johannes Fritsch represented the Germans and Colonel Francesca Bernardello represented the Italians. She looked surprisingly young, for someone who was a full colonel, although Richard knew better than to assume that meant she’d had an unfair advantage over her peers. Most starfighter pilots were young.

  “Thank you for staying,” he said, shortly. “I don’t have much time, so we’ll have a more formal gathering later ... perhaps when we’re halfway to our destination. Until then ... do any of you have any real concerns over our current plan?”

  “Train, train and train again,” Vargas said. He was a big black man, so dark that Richard found it hard to look him in the eye. “I like the way you think.”

  “Our pilots will not,” Leif predicted, cheerfully. “But they have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

  “If we’re attacked here, we’re fucked anyway,” Vargas pointed out.

  “We can still fight,” Francesca said. She met Richard’s eyes. “My only concern is that it was a long flight from Luna Base Thirty to Invincible. My crews need a chance to stretch their legs.”

  “They’ll have it.” Richard nodded in understanding. Four hours in a starfighter cockpit wasn’t fun, even if the pilots weren’t being shot at. “And your planes will be ready to fly again shortly.”

  “I assume we will be carrying out live-fire exercises,” Fritsch said. His accent was so thick that Richard could barely understand him. “We brought drones for target practice.”

  “We may have to wait,” Richard said. He nodded towards the display. “We’re in the middle of the shipyard complex. I doubt they’d let us launch starfighters here.”

  “Then we fly out of the shipyard complex and exercise there,” Fritsch growled. “There’s no substitute for live-fire exercises. Sir.”

  “No,” Richard agreed. He promised himself, silently, that he’d hunt down whoever had assigned Fritsch to Invincible and make him very sorry. Fritsch had the makings of a good officer - Richard could hardly disagree with his assessment of life-fire exercises - but his accent was too thick. He’d have to lose it. “But right now, we may not be able to do more than a handful of launches.”

  “Cheer up,” Vargas said. “In all of our emergency drills, they always leave out the emergency. We’ll learn the hard way.”

  “We will certainly be running scramble exercises,” Richard agreed. “But, right now, actually launching our starfighters will have to wait.”

  “Bah,” Fritsch muttered.

  “We don’t have a choice, do we?” Francesca’s voice was firm. “And besides, we will have time to practice during the voyage.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Richard said. The captain might want the ship to remain unnoticed as she passed through Terra Nova and headed to Falkirk - or wherever the unified command authority intended for humanity
to make her stand - but it was unlikely. It would do nothing for morale if they sneaked through a star system that had been human right from the day it had been discovered. “If nothing else, we can run a few drills before we jump through the first tramline.”

  “That would be good.” Fritsch sounded relieved. “My pilots do not have enough experience in carrier operations.”

  “They’ll be ready in a few weeks,” Leif said.

  “Yeah,” Vargas said. “Do you know where we’re going yet?”

  “No.” Richard shook his head. “Captain Shields may know, but he hasn’t bothered to confide in me.”

  “Odd,” Francesca said. “Is it a state secret or something?”

  “It may be,” Monica pointed out. “In the last two alien wars, we didn’t have to worry about spies. Here ... a handful of infected people in the right place would let the virus keep track of us. We might even have an infected bastard on our ship.”

  “You checked our blood.” Francesca rubbed her wrist. “But I take your point.”

  “We go where we’re sent,” Richard said. He took a moment to check their reactions, then continued. “I won’t - I don’t - have time to handle all the CAG duties. Ideally, one or more of you would be training to take my place, just in case something happened, but we don’t have time for that either. I need you to handle your squadrons without reference to me. If there are any minor issues, I expect you to handle them yourselves.”

  Vargas grinned. “Excellent. A blank cheque for mayhem!”

  “You’ll be too tired for mayhem,” Leif predicted. “My pilots, on the other hand, are used to sleeping uncomfortably.”

  “Just because you jarheads think that it isn’t a proper bed unless you’re lying in a muddy trench with some bastard dropping rocks on you ...”

  Richard cleared his throat. “Jokes aside, behave yourselves. Or we will all be for the high jump.”

  “Yes, sir,” Leif said.

  “And now that’s settled, you can get your carryalls to your bunks,” Richard said. “I’ll see you all in the simulators.”

  “Where we will whoop ET’s ass,” Vargas said.

  Richard smiled. He doubted it. The programming he’d done would teach them all a lesson about being cocky. “We’ll see,” he said. “Dismissed.”

  Monica stayed behind as the others left. “Interesting bunch,” she commented. “You read their files?”

  “Just the highlights,” Richard said. “You?”

  “Fritsch has a chip on his shoulder, I’m not sure why,” Monica said. “But he’s extremely competent, so his government gave him squadron command and sent him to us. Francesca is the daughter of a powerful Italian businessman, but ... she was a test pilot and an aerobatic flyer before she was called up. She wouldn’t have been in the aerobatic team unless she was extremely good.”

  Richard nodded. The Red Arrows - the greatest aerobatic display team in the solar system - were perfectionists. No one, regardless of their connections, was allowed to join the team unless they were brilliant flyers. He couldn’t imagine that it would be any different in Italy. If nothing else, anyone who wasn’t extremely good trying to perform the stunts would probably wind up dead. Francesca might look good on a recruiting poster - Richard had a feeling she probably was on a recruiting poster somewhere - but she wouldn’t have survived the aerobatic stunts if she wasn’t a good pilot too.

  Which doesn’t mean she’s a good squadron commander, he reminded himself. I’ll have to keep an eye on them.

  “We’ll see,” he said. He felt a sudden wave of tiredness and groaned, inwardly. He’d been running himself ragged since they’d been told they would be deploying in a week. “Any other thoughts?”

  “You should probably groom either Wallace or O’Brian as a replacement squadron leader, just in case you have to take on more of the CAG duties,” Monica said. “Wallace is the better flyer, if the files are to be believed, but O’Brian has better people skills. And family connections in Northern Ireland.”

  “We’ll see how they perform in the simulators,” Richard said. He resisted the urge to sit down, if only because he wasn’t sure he could stand up again. “You go get ready. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Monica said.

  She left, the hatch hissing closed behind her. Richard felt himself sag, as if he simply didn’t have the energy to carry on. 1410? It felt like 2400, time he really should be in bed. How long had it been since he’d slept properly? He honestly wasn’t sure. Months, perhaps. Too many people had died under his watch for him to feel anything but a numb tiredness that threatened to overcome him. Too many ...

  He opened his belt pouch and removed the injector tab. It wasn’t a good idea to use stims, not really. He knew, all too well, just how easy it was to become dependent on them. And yet, he didn’t have a choice. The next week was going to be frantic. He couldn’t afford to rest.

  I’ll stop when we’re on our way, he thought. And that will be the end.

  Quite calmly, he pushed the tab against his skin and pressed the trigger.

  Chapter Eight

  “Russian command, sir?”

  Stephen winced at Newcomb’s tone. It was very far from diplomatic, the sort of comment that should - that could - only be made in private. The Admiralty and the Foreign Office would be outraged to hear that it had been made at all. And yet, he didn’t disagree with his XO. There were too many question marks over Russia, dating back all the way to the First Interstellar War, for anyone to be happy under Russian command.

  “So it would seem,” he said, finally. The message had been brutally clear. Admiral Svetlana Zadornov, former commanding officer of RFS Brezhnev - the first Brezhnev - had been assigned to command Task Force Resolute. “And I doubt the Admiralty is interested in hearing any complaints.”

  “No, sir,” Newcomb said. “But can we trust the Russians to behave themselves?”

  Stephen shrugged. “There are issues I’m not at liberty to discuss,” he said, grimly. “But, right now, I think we can trust the Russians to know where their best interests lie.”

  He looked up at the holographic starchart. The latest set of updates from the MNF had warned that the virus was steadily advancing towards Zheng He, detaching a handful of smaller formations to deal with the colony worlds on either side of the main advance. Stephen liked to think that the colonies would delay the virus, at least for a few weeks, but he had to admit it was unlikely. The colonies had almost no military significance. They wouldn’t delay the virus any longer than it took for the virus to land troops and begin the infection.

  Or they might simply blow the orbital facilities into dust and then leave the colony for later attention, he thought. The virus might be alien, but he dared not assume that it wouldn’t understand military logic. There was nothing to be gained by absorbing the colonies when the remainder of the human sphere was hastily girding itself for war. No, it will come straight at us until it runs into a force powerful enough to stop it.

  He frowned. The updates had made it clear that Task Force Resolute was a task force in name only. On paper, it was powerful enough to overwhelm a well-defended system; in practice, only three carriers and one battleship had been assigned to the fleet. The remaining forty starships were a mixture of cruisers, destroyers, and a couple of experimental units that had never been put into mass production. Stephen had his doubts about how well the fleet could function as a single unit. Their communications networks and datanets were designed to be compatible - the First Interstellar War had taught humanity the importance of ensuring that they could link their datanets across national boundaries - but only a handful of captains had operated in a multinational formation before the war. There wouldn’t need to be malice to cause problems.

  Of course not, he told himself, sourly. Who needs malice when you have simple inexperience paired with a desperate need for haste?

  “It doesn’t matter right now,” he said. He sat back in his chair, silently dismissing
the issue with a wave of his hand. “Where do we stand for meeting our departure date?”

  “Better than I expected,” Newcomb said. “The engineers are confident that they can replace the damaged components and weld the armour back into place before the deadline. We’ve made a bunch of enemies, sir, but we should be ready to depart on time.”

  Stephen had to smile. “I received a whole string of complaints from Commander Davis,” he said. “He’ll just have to cope.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said. “How badly did we impact on his deadline?”

  “A couple of months, at least,” Stephen said. He sobered. “Let’s just hope the virus doesn’t reach Earth before Commander Davis is ready to launch his ship.”

  He looked down at his hands, feeling a pang of guilt. They’d had no choice, but to cannibalise fusion cores, heavy weapons and datanet processors from the half-completed HMS Furious. They hadn’t had a choice ... which hadn’t stopped the shipyard crews from bitching and moaning about what it had done to their schedules. Stephen didn’t blame them for being pissed. Starships weren’t thrown together like Lego models. Commander Davis and his crews would have to revise their production plans on the fly, pushing ahead with some aspects of the work while delaying others until replacement fusion cores could arrive. There was no way they’d meet their deadline.