The battle wasn't completely one sided, he noted. Human weapons could and did kill enemy fighters, but there were just too many of them. The humans were overwhelmed and destroyed before they could reorganised their formation, allowing the alien starships to advance forward to engage New Russia itself. And then the recording came to an end.
“We will be rethinking our plans in light of this development,” the First Space Lord said, with admirable understatement. “I don't think I need to explain just how serious this situation is, do I?”
No one disagreed.
Ted stared down at his hands, wondering briefly why he hadn't taken early retirement. It wasn't as if the navy wanted to keep him. And he could have been on the ground, instead of standing on the command deck of a carrier. But the navy was his life. And he knew his duty.
I volunteered to place myself between Britain and war, he reminded himself. And yet he’d never really faced the prospect of his own death in wartime. Accidents had accounted for more naval deaths over the past decades than enemy action. I don’t get to back out because it might have become dangerous.
“Dismissed, gentlemen,” the First Space Lord said. “Captain Smith, if you and Commander Fitzwilliam will remain behind ...”
“Yes, sir,” Ted said.
He waited until the massive compartment was almost empty, then followed the First Space Lord through a guarded airlock into a tactical planning centre. A handful of analysts were seated at terminals, working their way through the data from New Russia. He looked at one of the screens and saw an alien carrier, a fragile-looking craft. But they hadn't needed heavy armour to rip New Russia’s defences apart.
“Take a seat,” the First Space Lord ordered. “We have a mission for you.”
Chapter Seven
“A mission,” Ted repeated. “What do you want us to do?”
“The important detail, I think, is that the modern carriers simply lacked the armour to stand up to alien weapons,” the First Space Lord said. “That, combined with their stealth systems, gave them a definite advantage over the united fleet, allowing them to tear us apart.”
His voice was curiously flat. Ted realised, not entirely to his surprise, that the First Space Lord was too tired to really feel the deaths ... and grasp the full magnitude of what it meant for the war. If humanity’s unarmoured ships were easy prey for alien fighters, the war was within shouting distance of being lost along with the carriers. Once the carriers were gone, humanity wouldn't even be able to continue the war.
Understanding clicked. “Ark Royal might be able to stand up to them,” he said. He found himself fighting to hold back the urge to giggle in a decidedly-unmilitary manner. “We still have our armour.”
“Indeed,” the First Space Lord agreed. “Ark Royal might be able to survive where more modern carriers would have real problems.”
He tapped a switch, activating the star chart. “We are still studying the records, of course, but it seems to me that the aliens managed to jump over nine light years to New Russia, judging by their appearance. If this is the case, they have a major advantage over us. In particular, they will be able to avoid all of our blocking forces and reach Earth directly.”
Ted nodded. Earth possessed over seventy percent of humanity’s industrial base, population and fixed defences. It wouldn't go down easily, but if Sol were to be lost the human race might as well set off and try to escape in a ragtag fleet of starships, hoping they could evade the enemy long enough to rebuild and return to restart the war. But the odds would be against a successful escape.
“I believe that the aliens will attempt to jump here” – the First Space Lord tapped another star – “and use it as a waypoint on their road to Earth. There’s nothing there, apart from a handful of tiny mining stations and independent settlements. The aliens will have no trouble destroying them – or simply ignoring the settlers completely. I want Ark Royal in position to intercept the enemy fleet.”
“And then ... what?” Ted asked. “We would be massively outgunned.”
“Delay them, force them back on their heels,” the First Space Lord said, grimly. “Their carriers don’t appear to be any stronger than ours – and you have mass drivers and other projectile weapons. I intend to attach a squadron of missile frigates too, once they’re worked up and ready for deployment. If you can give them a bloody nose ...”
Ted saw the logic, even though it still seemed chancy. It might well be a suicide mission, yet he could understand why the First Space Lord would want to keep the fighting as far from Earth as possible. Between the political shockwaves and the panic that was likely to result, once the news finally broke, Earth would be in no state to defend itself.
Commander Fitzwilliam studied the map for a long moment. “What happened to New Russia?”
“We don’t know,” the First Space Lord confessed. “But we’re not optimistic.”
“They might have wiped out most of the population,” Ted said, softly. New Russia wasn't anything like as developed as Earth, but it would still be easy for the aliens to wipe out the settlements from orbit. “Or they might have destroyed the orbital defences and moved onwards.”
“We don’t know,” the First Space Lord repeated.
He looked up, meeting Smith’s eyes. “I confess I had my doubts about Ark Royal,” he admitted, keeping his voice so quiet that Smith had to strain to hear him. “The ship seemed a waste of resources, nothing more than a dumping ground for crew we couldn't be bothered to sack. Now ... she might be our salvation.”
Ted swallowed. Ark Royal was effectively unique, the only carrier with such heavy armour – let alone primitive weapons. It would take years to modify the yards to produce new armoured ships, unless the boffins came up with a new form of ablative armour that could be rapidly applied to the modern carriers. If Ark Royal were to be lost ... but there was no alternative, at least as far as he could see. The carrier was the only effective weapon humanity had.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, finally.
“You are to depart within two days,” the First Space Lord added. He picked a datachip off his desk and passed it to Ted, who took it carefully. “Your crew can send the usual messages, but make sure they know that they will be vetted and censored, if necessary. We don’t want to panic the civilians.”
“Understood,” Ted said. “Will any other ships be joining us?”
“It depends on international affairs,” the First Space Lord said. “Right now, they’re still stunned. They have to get through the recrimination stage before they start thinking what to actually do about the situation.”
Ted nodded. It had been bare hours since the news had reached Earth. By now, world leaders would have been briefed and were struggling to come to terms with the news from New Russia. It wouldn't be long before the news leaked out, not with so many people already aware of it. And then there would be panic ...
“Thank you, sir,” he said, again. “We won’t let you down.”
***
James mentally replayed everything he’d seen and heard in the briefing as the shuttle carried them back to Ark Royal. If he’d managed to get himself assigned to one of the modern carriers, he told himself, he might well have ensured his own death. The details of the battle suggested, very strongly, that there were no actual survivors. He’d known friends and family who had served in the unified defence fleet. Those people were dead ... or alien prisoners, POWs trapped light years from friendly territory. Would the aliens even bother to take prisoners? There was no way to know.
“Call the senior officers for a briefing,” Captain Smith ordered, as soon as the shuttle had landed in the shuttlebay. “And then put the entire ship under a communications barrier. I don’t want anyone sending a message home, not yet.”
James nodded and started to work, grateful for the distraction. He hadn't woken any of the other senior officers when they’d left the ship – the watch crew were the only ones awake – but he could see to that now. Once he’d woken them,
he contacted the communications department and ordered them to hold all personal messages. The only ones allowed out of the ship would be priority messages from the senior crew.
“The war situation has taken a turn for the worse,” Captain Smith said, as soon as the senior officers had gathered in the briefing room. “New Russia has fallen to the enemy.”
He ran through everything they’d been told, then showed the images from the battle. The senior officers stared in disbelief; by any reasonable standard, the battle had been hellishly short. Humanity didn't have much experience at space warfare, but simulations suggested that battles should take longer.
“Their starfighters seem to be less capable than ours, excepting the stealth and their weapons,” Schneider observed, finally. “Their stealth systems can’t be perfect or they would use them all the time.”
James couldn't disagree. He’d watched enough bad movies where the enemy weapons fire had seemed to come out of nowhere to know that it was a viable tactic, if the technology could be made to work. But the aliens had deactivated their stealth before engaging the human carriers, even though keeping it would have given them a decisive advantage. No, the systems couldn't be perfect ... unless, of course, the aliens thought that going in without stealth was honourable. But who knew how aliens might think?
“We will study all of the records during the trip,” the Captain said. “Our orders are to engage the enemy in this system.”
He ran through their orders and the rationale behind them. “I know that these orders are a gamble,” he added, “but I see no alternative. We will power up our systems this afternoon, then leave tomorrow. Prior to then, I want all section heads to brief their subordinates, then remind them to write wills and record final messages. Please also remind them that the censors will have a look at them first.”
James had to smile. The crew wasn't stupid, they'd know better than to say anything too revealing. But there were plenty of messages they could send that shouldn’t be shared any further, certainly not with a bureaucratic asshole just looking for something he could use to pretend he was doing something useful.
“If there is anything else you need,” he concluded, “I want you to request it by the end of the day. We should have priority shipping for anything we want – as long as we can get it before our departure time. If not ... it will just have to wait for us.”
There was a long pause. “Dismissed!”
James lifted an eyebrow as Schneider caught his eye, then nodded and waited for the room to clear before speaking to the CAG. “Yes?”
“Sir, one of my pilots had a ... friend on Formidable,” Schneider said. “She probably won’t be the only one to have someone missing, perhaps dead. Do you want me to talk to her?”
James hesitated. As XO, it was his duty to see to it ... but Schneider was definitely closer to his pilots. And besides, she almost certainly wasn't the only one to have a friend on the destroyed ships.
“Yes, please,” he said, finally. He’d have to check the records, but they rarely showed anything more than relatives. Someone might hear about their dead friend from the general ship-wide announcement. “And if you feel she needs further counselling, please inform me.”
Schneider nodded and left the briefing room. James watched him go, then reached for his terminal. There would have been to be a general announcement before they powered up the drives for the first time ... after praying desperately for success. James knew far too well just how tricky it would be to replace the fusion cores if they failed – it would take months, at the very least.
And by then humanity could very well have lost the war.
***
Kurt had to admit that, after a great deal of grumbling, his pilots had managed to sort out the squadron bunking in a suitable manner. Their quarters had been cleaned, new bedding had been installed and there were even a small collection of reading devices, although the latter had barely been touched between endless exercises and napping. Once they’d set up a working simulator, he’d kept his pilots too busy to do anything else.
There were no barriers offering any form of privacy, even when male and female pilots were sharing the same territory. Body modesty was rare among naval crewmen – and besides, pilots were not supposed to show any untoward interest in one another. Kurt had known that relationships happened a long time before he met Rose – and he’d actually had second thoughts about allowing mixed quarters – but he trusted her to behave herself. But now ...
He leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder. Like most active-duty naval crewmen, she had long since mastered the art of snapping awake when called, which gave her an advantage over the reservists. They had to relearn the art. Kurt was ruefully aware that if an active-duty pilot had been assigned as CAG, there might well have been a mutiny in short order. Reservists wouldn't take kindly to being treated as active-duty pilots, most of whom were young enough to get by on only a few hours of sleep a day.
“Sir?” Rose asked, looking up at him. “What’s happened?”
“Grab your robe and come with me,” Kurt ordered. He glanced at the other bunks, where the remainder of the squadron were still sleeping. “Quietly.”
He felt his cheeks heat with embarrassment as she rolled off her bunk, revealing that she was wearing an undershirt and panties ... and not much else. The swell of her breasts was instantly noticeable, while her long legs were perfect, strongly muscled and very pale. Irked, he looked away and paced out of the compartment. She joined him a moment later and followed him down to the room he'd turned into a makeshift office. He felt a moment of sympathy for her, all unaware of just how sharply her life had changed, then started to speak.
“Formidable has been destroyed,” he said, softly. It still seemed unreal to him, even though he’d seen the records. “As far as we know, she went up with all hands.”
Rose stared at him. For a long moment, it was clear, she didn't believe what she was hearing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He wondered, briefly, if he’d made a mistake. “I thought you should know ...”
“He can't be dead,” Rose said. “He ...”
Kurt understood. She would find it hard to come to terms with the news. Rose wasn't listed as one of her boyfriend’s relatives; she wasn't, technically, entitled to a visit from officers bearing the bad tidings. She wouldn't have heard the truth until the entire navy was told about the disaster. And there wouldn't be any support for her ... would there be any support for anyone? It had been a long time since the Royal Navy had lost so many crewmen in a single battle. Even the catastrophic life support failure on HMS Impervious, fifteen years ago, had only killed seventeen crewmen.
But the Battle of New Russia had killed nearly seven thousand officers and men. Two carriers, twenty-two support ships and over seven hundred starfighters. By any pre-war standard, the losses had been disastrous. And they were far from over.
“He shouldn't have died,” Rose said. Her entire body was shaking. “I ... he can't be dead.”
Kurt reached out and drew her into a hug, feeling her shake against him as she broke down. She’d genuinely loved her boyfriend; she’d accepted the assignment to Ark Royal, at least in part, because she wasn't willing to give him up. But now ... he was gone. Or, at best, an alien POW. Did the aliens take prisoners? Human history showed a wide range of possible treatment of prisoners, everything from reasonably nice camps to outright torture and enslavement. What would the aliens consider acceptable?
He tried to push the thought aside as she sobbed. Would Molly sob, he asked himself, if Ark Royal were to be destroyed? If Kurt himself were to die? Or would she force her feelings aside and carry on, for Penny and Percy if no one else? What sort of help would be extended towards a widowed woman when there would be thousands of others in the same boat?
“I’m sorry,” Rose said. There was a flat tone in her voice he didn't like at all. “I won’t be a problem for you and ...”
“No, you won’t,” Kurt said, wishing he kn
ew more about how to talk to someone who’d lost a lover in battle. “You’ll get your chance to exact revenge.”
Rose looked up, her face blotchy and weepy. “Are you sure?”
“We’re going to engage the enemy,” Kurt assured her. He knew it wouldn't be easy – and he wasn't sure if he should be telling her at all, at least until the Captain made a formal announcement – but she needed to know. “I think we’ll be leaving in a day or two.”
“Formidable is gone,” Rose said, bitterly. “What chance do we stand?”
“We will see,” Kurt said. There was no point in telling her, now, about the carrier’s armour - and how it might make a major difference in the next engagement. He held her for a long moment, then gently let her go. “I want you to take the next few hours off ...”
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