His Majesty's Starship

by Ben Jeapes

  And Gilmore found himself outside the prince’s door once more. He had a feeling he had probably called the prince’s bluff, on something. He also felt the prince hadn’t wanted it called.

  Just another month and then he’s out of my hands, he thought. God give me patience.

  *

  Samad Loonat sat at his station above the blast bulkhead in the drive compartment of HMSS Ark Royal. Metres away below him, a successive stream of fusion explosions was propelling the ship on its course; he paid it as much attention as he would rain the other side of a window pane.

  He paid far more attention to what was on his display. He frowned at it and shook his head. “Not possible,” he murmured. He ran the calculations again. Then he tapped his comm panel and called up to the flight deck.

  “Ade, I’m sending some figures to your station. Run them and tell me your results.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Adrian Nichol took a minute to finish and communicate the figures to Samad. His tone told Samad that the discrepancy had been spotted.

  “Thanks,” Samad said. “Is the captain on the flight deck?”

  “Not at present. I think he’s in his cabin, getting some shuteye.”

  “Poor captain,” Samad said.

  “Captain, we’re forty tons over mass,” Samad said without preliminary. Michael Gilmore blinked, still a bit sleepy. His expression as he stepped off the lift had indicated that this had better be more than a misplaced decimal point. Samad hadn’t disappointed him.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’ve been running the same figures over and again, ever since we left L5,” Samad said. “They were all consistent until-”

  “Yes?” Gilmore said.

  “-until we docked with Britannia and picked up the prince,” Samad said.

  “Ah,” Gilmore said. Samad was flattered his captain didn’t ask him to check the figures again. He knew Samad would have checked them into the ground. Ark Royal could not be forty tons over mass ... but it was. “How does it affect fuel consumption?” Gilmore said.

  “We have enough to get us there. Not enough for the return trip unless we refuel.”

  They looked at each other.

  “I’m thinking,” Samad said, “of all the racket when we docked and undocked-”

  Gilmore winced. “But Britannia would have alerted us if we were carrying off their docking mechanism ... and we used the attitude jets to manoeuvre! Why didn’t the systems pick the extra mass up then?”

  “Julia was piloting us and she would have used the ship’s automatic systems. And the conclusion I draw from that is that the ship is programmed to take the extra mass into account.”

  “Recommendations?” Gilmore said, after they had both paused to absorb the implications of the ship knowing about the extra forty tons when the crew did not.

  “I’d like to suit up and conduct an external inspection.”

  “What do you think you’ll find?”

  Samad shrugged. “That will make it more of an adventure.”

  “True,” Gilmore said. He looked grim and was heading back for the lift. “But you’re not going outside while we’re boosting and there may be an easier way of finding out. Come on, I need your expert testimony to support me.”

  Prince James slowly reached out to shut off the display of his aide and then looked up at his visitors.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’ll be the torpedoes.”

  There was only what passed for silence. The muffled rumble of the engines, the whine of the centrifuge’s flywheel.

  “Let’s hear it,” Gilmore said. Prince James settled back in his chair, hands behind his head.

  “When you docked with Britannia,” he said, “you were fitted with torpedoes. You’ll find that the front end of the ship, forward of the flight deck, has two casings attached, one on either side. They’re curved, like the hull, and not much thicker, and they’re at the point where the hull tapers.”

  “But how?” Samad said. “I’ve seen the ship’s plans, there’s nothing there-”

  “They’re attached to the old cargo studs,” said the prince. “When this ship was a freighter it had containers attached on either side of the flight deck. We left the studs on with the refit. Now, anyone observing the ship from a distance won’t notice the difference.”

  “Tell me about the torpedoes,” Gilmore said slowly.

  “You have a mixture of types,” said the prince. “Half are fusion warheads, and they’re shielded so you can fire them from orbit down to the surface. The other half are what we call grapeshot – they fire clouds of solid objects at oncoming ships-”

  “I know what grapeshot is,” Gilmore said. He could feel the panic rising up within him and he mentally battened the hatches against it. This was outside his experience. Usually when he saw the solution to a crisis it was because he was trained to handle it, but this ... It was what he always dreaded: a situation he would not be competent to handle. A time when things would get out of control and he couldn’t cope and he would be revealed as the no-good fake that, deep down, he was.

  “How do we fire them?” he asked.

  “Plantagenet has the targeting software built into his code-” the prince said.

  Gilmore slapped the comm panel on the wall. “Number One.”

  “Flight deck here, Captain.” Hannah’s voice sounded calm and efficient, and Samad drew in a breath. Gilmore knew why. Hannah had once told him her earliest memory was the Flight into Egypt, when a terrified Israeli population had fled their homes as stars fell out of the night sky and landed in neat precision along the eastern Mediterranean coast, making the land that was sacred to three religions and claimed by so many different peoples uninhabitable by any of them.

  And now she was on a ship carrying similar devices, and didn’t yet know it.

  “How much longer do we boost?” Gilmore said.

  “Twenty minutes, Captain.”

  “Once we’re done, prepare to roll the ship.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “What are you doing?” the prince demanded.

  “I’m going to point the ship away from the convoy and fire off the torpedoes,” Gilmore said.

  “You are not!”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Captain ...” The prince was gesturing in mid-air, as though trying to pluck the words he wanted out of nothing. “Those torpedoes are our insurance.”

  “You have knowingly violated every spacegoing convention in existence, you have mucked with my ship without my knowledge-”

  “That last point, yes, guilty as charged. Believe me, Captain, you were going to be informed. But as for that first point ... it must surely have dawned on you that we are entirely at the Rusties’ mercy? Would you throw away our one trump card?”

  Gilmore sneered. “You’re going to hold them up at gunpoint, is that it? Our one ship against God knows how many vastly superior armed vessels of their own, and say, ‘Right, Rusties, give us what we want’?”

  “On our own, no,” the prince said. “With the other delegation ships, perhaps.”

  “What?”

  Prince James took out his aide and set its display for public viewing. Then he paused and looked at Samad.

  “I hope your crew can be trusted to keep secrets,” he said. His answer was two ferocious glares and he took the hint. “Plantagenet, display document ‘gunrunner’, password ‘peaches’.”

  “Complying,” said the AI from the speaker. A listing appeared in the air above the prince’s desk and he pointed as he spoke.

  “My father’s intelligence agents worked hard and spent a lot for this, Captain, and some of it is still incomplete or unknown. But observe what we do have. The Israelis, we have reason to believe, are carrying twice our number of fusion warheads. They’ve got a bigger ship than us and have room to hide them from external view. Algol is primarily armed for ship-to-ship combat – grapeshot and warheads designed to give off great heat and nothing else. Warp a ship’s s
kin and rupture her, that’s the idea. As well as carrying copious amounts of holy water, the Vatican has a meteor laser that could carve up several cities from orbit. The Americans not only have torpedoes and an enhanced laser but also a party of marines. Their two landing boats look identical and one of them is just that, but the other is a military suborbiter which can drop down from close orbit to sea level and discharge crew safely in five minutes flat-”

  “I get the message,” Gilmore said. He felt numb but inwardly he was shaking with anger, barely trusting himself to speak. No one likes to know he’s been taken in and he had been – hook, line and sinker. He had swallowed everything and suspected nothing.

  “And of course,” the prince pressed on, “even if the Rusties are entirely innocent, all this proliferation puts us in an awkward spot. We really don’t want to be the only unarmed humans on the delegation, do we?”

  The prince had a habit of spelling out what Gilmore had already worked out for himself. Gilmore resisted the urge to hit the man and touched the comm panel again. “Number One, belay that last order. Is Arm Wild on the flight deck?”

  “No sir, he’s in his cabin.”

  “Good. Muster all hands on the flight deck but do it quietly.” He looked at the prince again. “You’re coming too.”

  “Perhaps it was deception,” the prince said. The rest of the crew continued to say nothing, glaring at him with expressions which ranged from active dislike to sheer hatred. He didn’t sound apologetic. “If so, I’m sorry. The point is, we felt we had to tell all of you, or none of you. A crew this size can’t afford secrets.”

  Gilmore felt his anger bubbling up again, listening to this man lecture him on good shipmanship.

  “If you had all known,” said the prince, now looking at Hannah, “some of you would have refused to come. Now, your captain was our choice to command this ship and he was given free reign to choose the best possible crew. If some of those who were chosen refused to come then the crew would no longer be the best possible. Therefore we did not tell the captain or anyone else.” Now he looked at Gilmore. “Again, I apologise.”

  “You can stand there and say that,” said Hannah, “when my native land was devastated by-”

  “I’d point out, Commander, that El Shaddai is very well stocked with nuclear warheads. Perhaps the leaders of Israel in Exile have a firmer grasp of realpolitik than you.”

  Hannah clenched the console and Samad put a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, my love,” he murmured.

  “I knew feelings would run high,” said the prince. “All I can do is give you my word that the torpedoes will not be used in an aggressive role. Someone will need to attack Ark Royal first.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t believe you,” said Hannah. Her tone was freezing cold. “You’ve lied to us before and you’re doing it again.”

  “That will do, Number One,” Gilmore said sharply.

  The prince didn’t bat an eyelid. “That’s your privilege, Commander.”

  “I say we do what you were going to do, sir,” Hannah said, looking at Gilmore. “We tilt the ship from the convoy and we fire them off.”

  “A cluster of fusion bombs within a light minute of the moon, Number One?” said Gilmore, who had thought of the flaw in his original plan the moment he said it out loud. “They will be pleased.”

  “But-”

  “The prince,” said Gilmore, looking James in the eye, “and his father, and no doubt various other members of the Royal Space Fleet who connived in this have behaved disgracefully, and on our return I will demand a public enquiry. Sadly, for the moment it’s a fact we’re now stuck with. If you don’t believe his word then believe mine. The torpedoes will not be fired in a first strike.”

  “That could warrant a tribunal,” the prince said.

  “I would demand a tribunal,” said Gilmore, “because when this is over, I will personally see that heads roll for this.” The prince shrugged as if the threat were meaningless, and indeed Gilmore himself didn’t know how he would do it. He wondered how many other captains knew the truth about their ships. Those that did would doubtless be going through the same train of thought as he was – balancing the fact that every treaty in existence said space was neutral and ships should not be armed against the fact that, like it or not, theirs were and there was nothing to be done about it – and drawing the same conclusions. And did those captains who knew their ship was armed think that theirs was the only armed ship? Was Gilmore actually in an advantaged position, knowing what he did about the delegation?

  “And in the meantime?” said the prince.

  “In the meantime, painful as it is-” Gilmore continued to glare at the prince, because it meant he was not obviously avoiding looking at Hannah. “-we keep the torpedoes. We have no choice.”

  The prince opened his mouth as if about to say something; saw Gilmore’s expression; and shut it again. He looked at his watch. “Very good,” he said. “Five minutes to end of boost, I believe? I’d better tie myself down. I’ll be in my cabin.”

  The act of climbing down the ladder from the flight deck rather spoiled his attempt at sauntering. Hannah watched him go with cold loathing and Gilmore mentally set aside a large part of the voyage for rebuilding bridges with his first officer.

  *

  James Windsor lay on his bunk with his hands behind his head. His aide was set to display a novel – text only, no interaction – over his head and he was engrossed.

  An attention-getting icon flashed in one corner of the display.

  “Yes, Plantagenet?” he said, not taking his eyes of the text.

  “I am sorry to disturb you, sir,” the AI said, “but I could not help overhearing something you said to the captain.”

  “Yes?”

  “You told him I have the targeting software for the torpedoes. I was not aware the ship had torpedoes until I heard them mentioned, and I was certainly not aware-”

  “You didn’t need to know, Plantagenet,” James said. “As for the software, you received the upgrade before you left UK-1.”

  “But I only received-” Plantagenet began. Then: “Accessing internally.” Another pause. “I see. Sir, I was misinformed. I was told that this upgrade was diplomatic data that might be needed later on in the voyage-”

  “That’s exactly what it is.”

  “Sir,” Plantagenet said, “as a result of this misunderstanding, Lieutenant Kirton has an inaccurate idea of my contents at the time of boarding and I am legally in a compromised position. You see, to bring something on board under false pretences is technically a felony-”

  “Clever, isn’t it?” said James.

  “I see,” said Plantagenet after another pause.

  - 8 -

  21 April 2149

  Report of Arm Wild Timbre Grey Wood Temple Southern Plains to Senior of the Human Operation

  I have the honour to submit for the approval of my fellows of the delegation prideship the following comments on the crew of the starship (using the term loosely) HMSS Ark Royal, and interviews with the same.

  It amuses me that when the humans first became aware of our prideships, a form of hysteria tinged with racial guilt swept over them and they made every effort to hide the truth of their past: the fact that they had had wars, polluted their planet, wiped out species and so forth. I gather their logic was that any race which can develop interstellar travel should by definition be beyond such things, though this is plainly false since all reports I have read give the humans another century at most before they invent step-through for themselves.

  The relevance of this aside is that, at first, if the humans were to be believed, they were never happier than when they were caring for and loving one another. As they became accustomed to us, and as we assured them of similarities in the past of our own world, their true nature began to reveal itself. And now, here am I travelling on what is, at least technically, a military spaceship.

  Interviews follow.

  *

  Michael Gil
more, Commanding Officer

  See comments made by original contact team on human psychology. The nearest First Breed equivalent to Michael Gilmore’s position would be Consensual Pride Senior; indeed, the two are very similar. My understanding is that King Richard, Michael Gilmore’s own chosen senior, instructed it to raise a ship’s company who then chose to serve under it. By virtue of this fact, Michael Gilmore now holds total authority on board Ark Royal, senior in ship-related matters even to Prince James, the official representative of King Richard.

  Gilmore sat at his desk in his cabin and glanced irritably at his watch. Like all spacer watches it was set to show the time transmitted by the nearest time signal, which in this case was on board Ark Royal herself, gradually stretching out the ship’s day to the 26 and a bit hours that the Roving took to spin on its axis.

  But it wasn’t just because the day was getting longer that the time fixed for Arm Wild’s appointment seemed to be taking forever to come about. Gilmore wondered why he felt so nervous. It wasn’t as if he was ambassador for the human race – Arm Wild had asked if he could interview every crew member, and as far as Gilmore knew, similar interviews were taking or had taken place on the other ships.

  But why were these interviews taking place at all? Perhaps that was what made Gilmore nervous. The Rusties had had plenty of chance to observe and study already. Why did they want to ask these further questions?

  God, too much wondering could-

  A chime interrupted him.

  “Enter,” Gilmore said, turning to face the door, which slid open to reveal Arm Wild.

  “I trust I have not kept you waiting?” the Rustie said.

  Gilmore glanced at his watch again. Spot on time. “Not at all. Come in, Arm Wild.”

  Gilmore normally no longer noticed the cheap aftershave smell, but here in the small cabin it was more apparent. He still had to resist the temptation to pluck rust flakes off Arm Wild’s skin.

  “I appreciate this chance to talk, Captain,” Arm Wild said.