The Right of the Line

by Christopher Nuttall

  And some asshole in Nelson Base will probably make snide comments about their competence when they fail to meet their deadline, Stephen thought, coldly. Furious had already been delayed once, while the designers absorbed the lessons from Invincible’s shakedown cruise and made adjustments to Furious. They’ll say the delay came from incompetence rather than military necessity.

  “I’m sure they’ll have the ship ready to fly and fight,” Newcomb said. “Overall, we should meet the deadline. Our real problem, however, is that our rear ablative armour will be weakened. There isn’t anything we can do about that without replacing the entire section and that would take weeks.”

  “And a handful of lucky hits there would cripple us,” Stephen mused. “Even one, if it hit the weakest point.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said. “Theo thinks he can bolt on extra armour, but it won’t stand up to more than one or two shots at most. And it would attract attention.”

  Stephen winced. “And then the enemy would know where to aim.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If they didn’t already know,” Stephen added, after a moment. “Who doesn’t know to aim for the drive section if they want to cripple the ship?”

  He shook his head in irritation. The designers had done their work well, but they’d run up against a number of practical limits. Every critical system on the ship was heavily protected, save for the drive section. It was as strongly armoured as human ingenuity could devise, but the rear section couldn’t be covered in armour without rendering the drive field useless. And, unlike the forward drive nodes, there was no way to hide the drive section either. The structure would draw fire as soon as the enemy drew within engagement range.

  “We don’t have a choice, sir,” Newcomb said. “If we want to meet our deadline, we have to accept that we’ll be flying with weakened armour.”

  “I know,” Stephen said, tiredly. He’d worked the problem dozens of times, trying to figure out a solution that satisfied everyone, but there wasn’t one. No one had managed to devise more than a temporary solution. “Order the engineers to install the extra armour. We’ll take the risk of drawing fire.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said.

  He didn’t sound happy. Stephen didn’t blame him for that either. No one in their right mind would take a poorly-armoured ship into combat, not unless there was no other choice. The lessons of the First Interstellar War, where lightly-armoured fleet carriers had been chopped apart by plasma weapons with casual ease, were sealed into the Royal Navy’s collective memory. There had been great advances since then - Invincible and her sisters could have won the Battle of New Russia effortlessly, if they’d somehow fallen back in time - but it would be a long time before the scars faded. What good was heavy armour if there was no time to install it?

  Stephen changed the subject. “And the remainder of the ship?”

  “We’ve managed to repair most of the internal damage,” Newcomb assured him. “We did hit some snags because of the need to keep the internal security locks in place, but ... the engineers assure me we should have everything ready before we meet the deadline. There may be some issues, once we set out ...”

  He shrugged. “We can probably fix those during the voyage.”

  “Good,” Stephen said. “And the crew?”

  “Morale is low, but I’m keeping them too busy to grumble.” Newcomb smiled, rather thinly. “There’s a lot of worried people on the ship, crewmen concerned about their families and friends on Earth. The BBC isn’t helping, I think.”

  “Probably not,” Stephen agreed. The BBC’s updates were long on scaremongering and short on actual news. It was easy to lose trust in reporters and the media when one didn’t have it in the first place. God knew the military updates weren’t very informative either. “Is there anyone we should be concerned about?”

  “Everyone,” Newcomb said, flatly. “There aren’t many crewmen who don’t have families on Earth.”

  “No,” Stephen agreed. “And there isn’t much we can do about it either.”

  He scowled. The government, in its wisdom, had ordered large chunks of the national datanet to be shut down. He could see the logic - the infected might be using the datanet to communicate - but he could also see the downside. In the absence of proper information, rumours would spread rapidly ... and panic would follow in their wake. There were already reports of innocent people being shot on suspicion of being infected. God alone knew how that would work out.

  “No, sir,” Newcomb said. “Have you been privy to any ... private updates?”

  “Nothing particularly detailed,” Stephen said. Duncan had sent him an email, but Stephen hadn’t had the time to read it. It hadn’t been marked urgent. “They still don’t know how the virus got down to the surface.”

  “They probably captured a RockRat miner and worked from there,” Newcomb said. “A RockRat could lead them to a smuggler crew and eventually a passage down to Earth without any of those pesky security checks.”

  “Perhaps,” Stephen said. “But ...”

  He shook his head. It was possible, although he found it hard to believe. RockRats might be anarchists, unwilling or unable to subordinate themselves to the Belt Alliance - let alone the Great Powers - but they were also extremely competent. They had to be. Space was an unforgiving environment, a place where the slightest mistake could spell disaster. A RockRat was about the least likely person to neglect basic safety precautions.

  “Or maybe they managed a suborbital insertion without being noticed,” he said, after a moment. “There’s enough debris in orbit that they might have been able to make a stealth insertion without triggering the alarms.”

  “There’s a lot of sensor platforms in orbit,” Newcomb pointed out. “It’s hard to imagine them managing to land without being detected and blown out of space.”

  “True.” Stephen nodded. If the orbital platforms detected an illicit landing, they’d fire first and ask questions later. “We may never know.”

  But we have to know, he thought. Or else we might never feel safe again.

  “I’ll push the Admiralty for permission to update the crew,” he said, instead. “But, right now, very few people know anything.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said. “Hopefully, things will get better when we’re underway.”

  Stephen nodded, grimly. It had been a long time - nearly two hundred years - since the Troubles, when terrorists and wreckers had targeted military families in a desperate bid to destroy morale. They’d paid a steep price for their crimes - and so had a vast number of innocents, he acknowledged grimly - but the damage had lingered. This war was going to be worse. There was no point in retaliatory killings when the targets wouldn’t even notice.

  “Let us hope so,” he said. “What about the foreigners?”

  “No troubles as yet, but the CAG informs me that they have yet to do anything more than eat, sleep and run simulations,” Newcomb said. “Poor Redbird has had them in the simulators from dawn till dusk.”

  “Ouch,” Stephen said. “And how are they getting along?”

  “They’re doing about as well as can be expected, he says.” Newcomb shrugged. “But the shipyard CO refused permission to carry out live-fire drills.”

  “And we can’t override him,” Stephen mused. “We’ll just have to make up for them during transit.”

  “Yes, sir.” Newcomb consulted his datapad. “Thankfully, they fly the same basic starfighters as us. Their logistic requirements are practically identical to ours. We shouldn’t have any problems supporting them. The only real problem is that a couple of pilots don’t speak perfect English, but we’re working on that.”

  “Ouch,” Stephen said. It was rare to encounter a spacer who didn’t speak English. “Is it likely to cause problems in combat?”

  “The CAG is confident that most of the issues can be worked out,” Newcomb said. “And if they’re not ... we can probably cope with any problems, as long as the pilots stay in their national forma
tions.”

  “Good,” Stephen said. He rubbed his eyes. “Are there any other issues?”

  “Nothing serious enough to bring to your attention,” Newcomb said. “There was some minor grumbling over shore leave being cancelled, but the senior chiefs took care of it.”

  “We might have to do something about that,” Stephen said. He considered it for a moment, but nothing came to mind. There wasn’t anything he could do, short of sending the crew on shore leave ... and that was obviously impossible. “Maybe we should send for a NAAFI ship.”

  “They want to get out of the hull and stretch their legs, sir,” Newcomb said. “A NAAFI ship won’t cut it.”

  “I know,” Stephen said. “Particularly as a NAAFI ship won’t bring them what they want.”

  “They also know what’s at stake,” Newcomb added. “It won’t be that hard to keep them focused.”

  “They’re not machines,” Stephen pointed out. “And even machines wear out if you work them too hard.”

  He studied his desk for a long moment, trying to think of something. A military force couldn’t remain on alert forever, no matter what the politicians and media claimed. A constant state of alert - of high activity with no end in sight - would wear them down as surely as a steady series of engagements. Tiredness would start to seep in, leading to a constant stream of mistakes ... some which would be life-threatening. It would only take one mistake to lead to utter disaster ... he shook his head. He’d just have to make sure that the crew had a chance to rest during transit. But it wouldn’t be good enough.

  Of course not, he thought, dryly. How can they relax properly when they might be called to action at any moment?

  “Keep me informed,” he said. Another update blinked up in front of him. Two starships had been withdrawn from the task force roster, with only one - so far - earmarked as a replacement. “And keep an eye on crew morale. If we can do something about it ...”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said. “You could push for the prize money to be paid out now.”

  “I could,” Stephen said. The Admiralty hadn’t quibbled over the prize money, but the Treasury was balking. He had been preparing himself to lodge an official protest when the virus had started its terrorist campaign. “But where would they spend it?”

  “It would give them hope for the future,” Newcomb said. “And that might be just what they need.”

  “True,” Stephen agreed. “Very true.”

  He smiled, thinly. “Dismissed.”

  Newcomb saluted, then left the ready room. Stephen watched him go, then tapped a command into his terminal. His steward entered a moment later, carrying a mug of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. Stephen frowned - he didn’t feel like eating - but there was no point in arguing. The poor woman had orders to make sure her captain ate properly at all times.

  “Thank you,” he said, as she put the plate on his desk and withdrew as silently as she’d come. “I’ll eat them soon.”

  He glanced at the sandwiches, picked one at random and started to eat while studying the readiness reports. Invincible was slowly coming to life, although his departmental heads hadn’t hesitated to point out issues that might - might - turn into serious problems during the voyage. Stephen scowled, cursing the virus under his breath. He’d known commanding officers who’d objected to reading anything that smacked of negativity, but he’d never seen the point of it himself. Better to plan for the worst and hope for the best than ignore a problem in the hope it would go away. If his officers were concerned about something, he needed to be concerned about it, too ...

  Even if I have to ignore it, he thought, sourly. He hated to leave a potential problem alone - it was the sort of thing that led to disaster, under normal circumstances - but there was no choice. We simply don’t have the time to fix everything.

  He reached for another sandwich, tapping a switch to bring up the live feed from the starfighter simulators. Commander Redbird had outdone himself, Stephen noted; he’d crafted simulations designed to knock the fighter pilot arrogance out of anyone who hadn’t realised that they were not invincible. The early engagements looked to have been utterly disastrous, with the entire wing being practically wiped out time and time again. It was only now that the stats were steadily starting to improve.

  “And the virus isn’t that good,” Stephen muttered. The simulated enemy starfighters were impossibly fast, flown by pilots with improbable aiming skills. “Unless they’ve been hiding some real high-tech from us ...”

  He gritted his teeth. It was quite possible that the virus was hiding something from them, intentionally or otherwise. Stephen had seen it deploy starships that would have been outdated fifty years ago, alongside ships that could match the best warships humanity could produce. Who knew what it had yet to send into battle? It might have overwhelmed a far more advanced race on the other side of its territory ... hell, humanity didn’t even know just how much space it actually controlled. There were so many unanswered questions that Stephen couldn’t help feeling that they were jumping into the unknown ...

  “But we don’t have a choice,” he told himself. He forced himself to put his concerns aside and concentrate on preparing his ship for war. “We have to fight.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You folks had better get comfortable,” the pilot called. “There’s a line of shuttles and shit waiting to dock.”

  Alice blinked in surprise. “On Invincible?”

  “That’s right,” the pilot confirmed. “And the line is moving pretty damn slowly.”

  “They’re probably testing everyone for the virus, again,” Hammersmith muttered. He looked disgustingly fresh for someone who had only managed to catch a few hours of sleep during the flight. Beside him, Tindal was snoring gently. “Or ... something.”

  “Probably,” Alice said. “We’ll just have to wait.”

  She leaned back in her uncomfortable seat and brought up the live feed from the shuttle’s external sensors. The shipyard was, as always, a teeming hive of activity ... but, this time, the activity seemed to be concentrated on Invincible. Hundreds of shuttles, worker bees and mobile shipyard modules hovered around the giant carrier, while thousands of dockyard workers in suits crawled over her hull. A giant metal hexagon was steadily being steered towards the rear of the starship. It took her a moment to realise it was a piece of armour. The captain was clearly determined to get his ship ready to deploy as quickly as possible.

  “There’s a convoy being assembled,” Hammersmith pointed out. “Perhaps we’re going to be escorting her.”

  “Perhaps,” Alice said. The freighters looked as if they’d been designed in the belt, rather than one of the national or corporate shipyards, but that hardly mattered during wartime. The Belters were in danger too. Her lips thinned in cold dislike. Her wretched father had joined the Belters, after he’d been unfrozen. The Belters either didn’t know about his past or simply didn’t care. “But they wouldn’t assign a damaged assault carrier to protect a convoy.”

  “She can still fight,” Hammersmith said. “We can still fight.”

  “Not in a real engagement,” Alice said, firmly. “And how would we be able to bring our strength to bear?”

  The shuttle quivered, slightly. “We’ve just moved up in line,” the pilot said. “We’ll be docking in twenty minutes or thereabouts.”

  “Hurry up and wait,” Hammersmith said. The shuttle quivered again. “Do you think we’ll be reassigned?”

  Alice shrugged. It hadn’t been that long since they’d returned from their last deployment. It wasn’t uncommon for marine units to be reassigned if their mothership had to return to the shipyards, but they would normally receive a period of shore leave first. She sighed, inwardly, at the thought. There was little point in her being given shore leave. Where would she go? God knew she probably wouldn’t be allowed to enter the orbital towers or take a shuttle down to Earth. She wouldn’t even be allowed to visit Sin City.

  Not that I’d want to go in any case,
she told herself, firmly. I’d sooner take a tour of the lunar surface then waste a few hours in Sin City.

  She forced herself to wait as the shuttle inched towards the starship, trying to control her impatience. Hammersmith was right. “Hurry up and wait” had been part of the military life for thousands of years. There was nothing she could do to speed things up, so she might as well take advantage of the time to relax. There would be another challenge soon enough.

  And I still don’t know what’s going to happen to me afterwards, she thought, as she keyed her terminal. There still weren’t any updates from Earth, just bland platitudes that probably spread panic. She hadn’t even heard anything from her sister! They’ve probably put a block on outgoing messages from Earth.