Ark Royal 3: The Trafalgar Gambit

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Indeed they could,” Doctor Russell said. He smiled, clearly proud of himself. “We believe the weapon will spread rapidly, but it won’t become lethal for several months. There will be enough time for it to spread through alien-held space.”

  Ted snorted. The problem with any form of biological warfare was that the weapons tended to mutate when released into the natural world. And the researchers were dealing with a completely alien biology, no matter how much they claimed to understand what they were doing. It was quite possible the disease would be instantly lethal, fail completely or be defeated by something the aliens had invented for their own medical care. If there were humans trying to improve the basic human form, why wouldn’t there be aliens trying to do the same?

  And if the disease acted so rapidly it slaughtered an entire planet without going any further, it would be blindingly obvious to the aliens that it had been an attempt at genocide.

  “I want you to keep all your research carefully sealed, Doctor,” Ted ordered. The researchers were already largely isolated, but they were allowed to talk to the ambassadors and their aides. As if the thought had worked a magic spell, he saw one of the aides appear at the hatch and start walking purposefully towards him. “And do not talk about it outside the cleared circle.”

  “I have every confidence in my security precautions,” Doctor Russell protested. “I am no stranger to classified work ...”

  “Then do as I tell you,” Ted ordered, shortly. He turned to face Ambassador Melbourne’s aide. “I suggest we take this conversation outside.”

  The young man - Antony DuBois, if Ted recalled correctly – looked irked, but obeyed. Ted wasn't too surprised. He hadn’t met many such aides during his time on Ark Royal, something that hadn't prepared him for meeting them after his promotion. The aides all seemed to think they had the clearances enjoyed by their political masters and that they had a right to know everything. In some cases, they might have had a point. This, Ted decided as he walked the younger man outside, wasn't one of them.

  DuBois turned to face him as soon as the hatch was closed. He was a short man, wearing a formal suit despite special permission to wear shipsuits or modified uniforms. His hair was perfectly coiffed, which suggested a streak of vanity or insecurity. Ted had no time to wonder which, not when he had a flotilla to command and a security crisis on his hands.

  “The Ambassador’s cabin, Admiral, is much too small,” DuBois said. “We need to move him to a bigger one.”

  Ted kept his expression blank with an effort. Aides derived their status from their superiors. A slight, however unintentional, to one of the ambassadors was a slight to their aides. But under the circumstances, the Ambassador himself had not complained. Had he wanted his aide to do the complaining for him or was his aide trying to do what he thought was best?

  “The Ambassador has one of the largest sets of quarters on the ship,” Ted said. It was true; there were only two bigger suites on the ship and both of them were occupied. “He also only has to bunk down with his aides.”

  “It isn't suitable,” DuBois insisted. “He needs to make a show to the aliens.”

  “I don't think the aliens will notice if he shares a cabin or has a palace to himself,” Ted snapped, too tired to deal with the situation any further. “I suggest, Mr. DuBois, that you resign yourself to sharing those quarters until we make contact with the aliens.”

  He turned and strode down the corridor, into the next section. Inside, the air was warm and moist, the temperature a reminder of the alien holding facility on the other side of the moon. Ted had visited, twice, since they’d brought the alien captives back to Earth, but they’d been as uncommunicative as ever. He pushed the thought to one side as he stepped through the second hatch and into Doctor McDonald’s working space.

  “Doctor McDonald,” he said, feeling sweat trickling down the back of his uniform jacket. It was too hot to wear a formal uniform. “I was hoping you’d have time for a proper chat.”

  Polly McDonald looked up at him. She was wearing a halter top and a pair of shorts that were so tight Ted couldn't help wondering if they were painted onto her skin. He had to remind himself, sharply, that she was young enough to be his daughter as she waved him to a chair and reached for a bottle of water. Ted took it gratefully.

  “I’m sorry about the weather, Admiral,” she said. “If I am to meet the aliens in their natural habitat, or at least on the shores of their worlds, I need to stay used to their preferred conditions.”

  Ted hesitated, then removed his jacket and folded it over his lap. “Talking to the aliens is of prime importance, Doctor,” he said. “Can you talk to them?”

  “Please, call me Polly,” Doctor McDonald said. She smiled. “I think talking to them without a voder is going to be damn near impossible; they might be able to hear us, but we can't hear them speaking. Still, we have recordings from the alien cities your people observed and I’m fairly certain we can produce something the aliens can hear.”

  Ted nodded. “Didn't you try it on the alien captives?”

  “Most of them were non-committal,” Polly admitted. “Their behaviour is odd, Admiral, at least by our standards. Sometimes they’re willing to try to communicate, at other times they seem to be sulking like children, even amongst themselves. We’ve tried to record their conversations, but we got nothing useful.”

  “Nothing at all?” Ted asked. “Are we missing something?”

  “It’s possible,” Polly agreed. “The aliens might combine sign language with their high-pitched voices, but I don’t see how they developed without some form of non-visual communication. All we hear from them is that they’re repeating the same sounds over and over again.”

  “They could be saying something we can't hear,” Ted mused.

  “We might not be able to hear it,” Polly said. “But the monitors should be able to pick out pitches and changes in tone ... even if we can't hear it with our merely human ears. There doesn't seem to be enough shift to suggest they’re actually talking. It’s more like they’re rehashing the same statements over and over again.”

  She frowned. “I keep thinking of some of the weirder proposals on the fringes of science,” she added. “The aliens might have been deliberately modified to have a considerable level of intelligence, but a very limited amount of free will.”

  Ted blinked. “Is that even possible?”

  “In theory,” Polly said. “You could program limiters into the brain, perhaps ones making it impossible to tell the difference between someone’s own desires and orders from someone else. Or you could undermine their sense of self until it simply doesn't exist. In practice ... it has never been tried, officially. It would break the conventions on designing a humanoid slave race.”

  “And unofficially?” Ted asked. “Weren't there people who wanted to try?”

  “It got shut down before it ever got off the ground floor,” Polly said. “Too many people reacted to the concept with absolute revulsion. But I’m starting to think the aliens need to work in groups to reach their full potential.”

  “They also fly starfighters,” Ted pointed out. “I don’t care how advanced their technology is, Doctor, but they couldn't fit more than two or three aliens into those cockpits.”

  Polly smirked. “Even if they were prepared to be very friendly?”

  Ted flushed, remembering a rite of passage for junior lieutenants. He’d been told to find out how many lieutenants he could fit into a standard shuttle. Unfortunately, there simply hadn't been enough lieutenants on the ship to fill the shuttlecraft. It had turned out, afterwards, that he’d been meant to fill in the spaces with locals, prostitutes from the nearest brothel. They’d called it an exercise in thinking outside the box. Ted considered it an exercise in pointless hazing.

  “I don't think they'd actually get any flying done,” he said. “I don't think they need to be in groups to think.”

  “Maybe they can't react to situations outside their orders,” Polly said. “I’v
e seen academics, really clever men and women, have problems thinking when they’re forced to focus on something outside their subject. They have panic attacks and start trying to escape ...”

  “I’ve had officers who had the same problem,” Ted said. “They just can’t think when something happens outside their orders.”

  He took a breath. “Do you think we can actually ... make contact with the aliens?”

  “I think we can build up a communications algorithm,” Polly said. “They may well have done their own research into communicating with us. In that case, we will have to match our efforts with theirs and see what happens. But if we can't establish any meaningful dialogue ...”

  Ted nodded. If the aliens couldn't be talked out of fighting, there would be no choice, but to fight the war to the bitter end. He thought of the test tube Doctor Russell had showed him and went cold. Were the aliens building their own biological weapons program? There were thousands of people with enhanced immune systems these days, mainly in the military, but would they survive whatever the aliens might use to exterminate the human race?

  “Do the best you can,” he said, standing. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He'd need to shower and change before he went on duty in the CIC. “And let me know if you have any brainwaves that will make contacting them easier.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” Polly said. She looked down at the table for a long moment, then looked up and met his eyes. “I don’t think they’re an evil race.”

  “I agree,” Ted said. The aliens had passed up countless opportunities for brute slaughter until they’d attacked Earth. Had they actually meant to devastate humanity’s homeworld? “But they’ve done a lot of damage, Doctor. Even if we do manage to talk to them, coming to a peace agreement isn't going to be easy.”

  He nodded to her, then strode out of the hatch and walked back to his office. Even now, crawling through a potentially hostile star system, there was no shortage of work to do.

  And besides, it distracted him from his growing concerns.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kurt felt oddly numb over the days following their joint confession. On one hand, his duties to the starfighter pilots under his command were blurred with reporting to the Marines and going through every last detail of their affair; on the other hand, he kept expecting the blackmailers to make contact and nothing happened. He programmed his terminal to alert him the moment any message arrived, then did his best to put it out of his mind. It didn't work.

  He missed Rose, more than he cared to admit. It wasn't just the sex; it was being with her, sharing ideas for how best to deploy their starfighters in combat. But they’d been banned from being together alone and it was hard to get someone else to supervise them. All they could do was keep busy, keep the new trainees working hard to build up their skills and try not to think about the future. Whatever happened, Kurt knew, his career was definitely at an end.

  “All clear,” the XO said, once Ark Royal passed through yet another tramline. “Starfighter pilots may return to their quarters.”

  Kurt nodded and climbed out of his starfighter. One squadron would remain on Quick Reaction Alert at all times, just in case they encountered the aliens, but the remaining pilots would either go to the simulators or their bunks. Most of the trainees were looking tired and worn these days; if it had been possible, Kurt would have forced them all to take a week’s rest. But he knew that it wouldn't be possible until the end of the mission.

  He sighed as he looked at the young men and women. Most of them were definitely going to wind up dead.

  “Concentrate on your attack formations,” he ordered, addressing one group. They’d be going straight to the simulators. “You’re not random enough. The aliens will rip you to shreds when you enter attack range.”

  “I’ll put them through the wringer,” Wing Commander Falcone assured him. He looked ridiculously young for his rank, but at least he had experience. He’d been nothing more than a newly-trained pilot during Operation Nelson. “And then make sure they get some damn sleep.”

  “Proper sleep,” Kurt ordered. “Sleep machines tend to catch up with you, sooner or later.”

  He watched them go, then turned and hurried back to his office. The Marines would probably want to talk to him again soon enough and he wanted a nap before they arrived, if only to prevent himself from falling asleep in the middle of the interrogation. They just went over the same questions again and again. Kurt suspected they were trying to catch him in a lie, something that infuriated him more than he cared to say. But he knew they had no reason to trust him. They knew how badly he’d compromised himself.

  His office was monitored now, of course. Kurt wasn't sure if it was to make sure he wasn’t making love to Rose or to catch anyone trying to leave messages for him, but it was something else he hated, no matter how much he understood. He stepped through the hatch and half-stumbled towards the desk, fighting down the yawn that threatened to burst from his mouth. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him.

  And a new message was blinking on his terminal.

  He stared, suddenly shocked into action. It was from the address he’d been given ... and he should have been alerted. When he looked down at the terminal on his belt, he saw nothing ... but they’d been on tactical alert. Nothing short of a Priority One message would have been forwarded to him. He cursed violently, then opened the message. It was nothing more than a handful of sentences strung together, seemingly at random. But he knew it was the message’s arrival that was the true notification.

  Bracing himself, he stood and strode through the hatch, heading up towards the observation blister. It was late at night, by shipboard time, which probably meant it would be in use by a pair of legitimate lovers. The hidden sign indicating occupancy was there, warning him not to enter the compartment. But he had a feeling it was actually there to keep people out until he’d picked up his orders. Cursing again, he walked through the hatch and into the observation blister. It was empty.

  Puzzled, he looked around. There was a datachip lying on one of the benches, under the stars. He picked it up and examined it, but saw nothing that separated it from the hundreds of thousands of datachips used throughout the ship. It looked to be a design used by both civilian and military personnel. No one would think twice if they saw it, he realised, silently saluting the blackmailers. And, without the correct access codes, they wouldn't be able to use it.

  He popped the chip into his terminal. There was a brief moment of nothing, then the terminal demanded a biometric scan. Kurt swore under his breath, then pressed his fingertip against the reader, wondering just where the blackmailers had obtained his biometric details. They were kept under tight security at Nelson Base, as far as he knew. Fingerprints were one thing, but access to a person’s genetic code – which would be possible, if they’d accessed his fingerprint records – was potentially disastrous. Someone could force-grow a clone of someone important and use the clone’s DNA to access classified data.

  Or perhaps they just took my fingerprints from Luna City, he thought. He had been too distraught to think about the mug of tea he’d drunk. Fred could have arranged for it to be picked up and then delivered to one of his associates. Now, let’s see ...

  The files on the datapad unlocked, one by one. Three of them were text files, the fourth was an executable program. He opened the first text file and read it, quickly. It consisted of nothing more than instructions, which he had apparently twenty-four hours to follow or else. They didn't go into details, but it didn't matter. He knew what ‘or else’ meant.

  He sighed. He’d have to take the terminal to the Marines and hope they knew what to do with it. And that the blackmailers didn't notice what he'd done.

  ***

  “They want what?” Ted asked.

  “Access codes,” Major Parnell said. His technicians had been examining the datachip since the CAG had brought it to them. “They want his access codes, but also access codes belonging to the XO and the C
aptain. And they want him to upload the program on the datachip into the main computer.”

  Ted shook his head, firmly. Ark Royal was less dependent on automation than the modern carriers, but they didn't dare risk losing the main computer. It was bad enough that the system was a patchwork of ancient Royal Navy gear merged with Russian, Chinese and French systems. He’d had nightmares about it coming apart at the seams ever since the aliens had proven their ability to shoot through the hull. They’d built as much redundancy into the system as they could, but he knew it wouldn't be enough.

  Fitzwilliam had another question. “What does the program actually do?”

  “It's a virus,” Parnell said. “It won’t do anything until it receives the signal. When it does, it will hack its way into the ship’s datanet and take control, locking us all out. Or it would, according to the techs, if we were a normal ship. The virus wasn't designed with our systems in mind.”

  Ted’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure of that?”

  “The techs think our systems won’t be able to support the virus when it goes active,” Parnell said. “But I’d prefer not to test it.”