Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Vanguard

  (Ark Royal, Book VII)

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Book One: Ark Royal

  Book Two: The Nelson Touch

  Book Three: The Trafalgar Gambit

  Book Four: Warspite

  Book Five: A Savage War of Peace

  Book Six: A Small Colonial War

  Book Seven: Vanguard

  http://www.chrishanger.net

  http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

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  Cover by Justin Adams

  http://www.variastudios.com/

  All Comments Welcome!

  Cover Blurb

  The third trilogy in the hit ‘Ark Royal’ series begins now!

  HMS Vanguard is the most powerful battleship ever to be commissioned by the Royal Navy, but she is not a happy ship. Her commanding officer is eccentric, rarely seen on the bridge; her former XO has deserted his post and her first middy is resentful because he hasn't been promoted as he deserves ...

  But when a first contact mission goes badly wrong, HMS Vanguard and her crew are plunged into an interstellar war against a new and deadly alien threat.

  And if they don’t make it back to friendly space in time, they will merely be the first to die in a new interstellar war.

  [Like my other self-published Kindle books, Vanguard is DRM-free. You may reformat it as you choose. There is a large sample of the text – and my other books – on my site: chrishanger.net. Try before you buy.]

  Author’s Note

  I wrote Vanguard to be as stand-alone as possible; the only major character to have appeared before is Prince Henry, who was a fairly major character in The Nelson Touch and The Trafalgar Gambit. All you really need to know about him is that he was a starfighter pilot during the First Interstellar War (with the Tadpoles) who got captured and played a major role in peace talks. Since then, he has been assigned to Tadpole Prime as Earth’s Ambassador.

  As always, reviews, comments and suchlike are warmly welcomed. Please feel free to forward spelling corrections and suchlike to me.

  Finally, please follow my blog and/or mailing list for future releases. I’ve discovered that Facebook doesn't share my posts with all of my followers.

  Thank you

  CGN

  Dedication

  To the men and women of Britain’s armed forces.

  Prologue

  “Captain,” Commander Katy Shaw said. “We are ready to go where no man has gone before.”

  Captain Francis Preston snorted, rudely. HMS Magellan and HMS Livingston had been probing the tramlines before Tadpole space for the last six months, only to find nothing beyond a pair of uninhabited worlds that would probably be turned into joint colonies. Nothing to sniff at, to be fair - the crew would be able to claim a bonus from the Survey Service - but nothing to shake the universe either.

  “Raise Captain Archer,” he said, sitting upright in his command chair. “Inform him that we will jump through the tramline in” - he glanced at his console - “ten minutes.”

  “Aye, sir,” Katy said.

  Francis nodded, then looked around the bridge. The younger members of the crew, their enthusiasm undiminished by six months of nothingness, looked excited, while the older crewmen were checking and rechecking their consoles as they prepared for the jump. It was rare for a previously undiscovered tramline to throw up any surprises, but several survey ships had set out on exploration missions and vanished, somewhere in the trackless wastes of interstellar space. Who knew? The tramline could lead to anything.

  “Captain Archer acknowledges, sir,” the communications officer said. “He says he still thinks you cheated at cards.”

  “Sore loser,” Francis commented. He and Captain Archer had played cards for the right to take point as the survey ships moved onwards and he’d won. “Tell him to hold position and wait for our return.”

  “Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Francis learned forward. “Take us into stealth,” he ordered. “And then set course for the tramline.”

  He let out a breath as the display dimmed, slightly. There was no way to know what was at the other end of a tramline without jumping through, which was why survey ships tended to operate in pairs. If Magellan failed to return, Livingston would head back to the nearest military base at once, rather than try to follow her sister ship. It would be tough on Magellan if she needed assistance, but standing orders permitted no ambiguity. Maybe she’d fallen right into a black hole - it was theoretically possible - or maybe she’d run into a hostile alien race. It was the latter thought that kept the Admiralty’s planners up at night. Humanity’s first encounter with an alien race had almost been its last.

  But the odds against meeting another spacefaring race are considerable, he reminded himself, firmly. It was sheer luck that we ran into the Tadpoles when they were at relatively the same stage of development.

  He pushed the thought aside as the display flickered, warning him that they had entered the tramline. “Drive online, sir,” the helmsman reported. “Gravity flux nominal. I don’t think there are any surprises waiting for us in this tramline.”

  “Good,” Francis grunted. He glanced at the green-lit status display, then up at his XO, who nodded. “Jump!”

  The starship shivered, slightly, as she jumped down the tramline and into the unexplored system. Francis let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding as the display flickered and then rebooted, displaying a standard G2 yellow star. Most transits were routine, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, but an unexplored tramline might have an unexpected gravimetric flux that could cripple or destroy a ship. The odds were staggeringly against it, yet there was one tramline, right on the other side of explored space, that had eaten every starship that jumped down it. No one had returned to tell the tale.

  “Jump complete, sir,” the helmsman said. “There were no problems.”

  “Good,” Francis said. “I ...”

  “Captain,” the tactical officer interrupted. “I think you should take a look at this!”

  Francis rose from his command chair and hurried over to the tactical console. There were at least two planets within the system’s life-bearing zone, both surrounded by the yellow icons of unidentified ships, space stations and radio sources. Hundreds of icons were swarming through the system, some clearly heading to an asteroid field and others making their steady way towards a gas giant. He felt his heart start to pound in his chest as the computers struggled to match the unknowns to something in its memory ... and failed. They were staring at a whole new spacefaring race.

  “Cloak us,” he snapped. Stealth mode rendered the ship almost undetectable, but there was no point in taking chances. Standing orders were very clear. No alien race, particularly one that could pose a genuine threat to humanity, was to know the survey ship was present until the various human governments could decide what to do about it. “Tactical analysis?”

  “Impossible to be sure at this distance, sir, but I’d say their tech base is on a par with ours,” the tactical officer said. “I’m definitely picking up drive fields ... they’ve got bases scattered right across the system.”

  Katy leaned forward. “Are they using the tramlines?”

  “I’m not sure,” the tactical officer admitted. “There’re three more in the system itself ...”

  Francis closed his eyes as he thought, rapidly. A race on the same level as mankind - and the Tadpoles - should certainly know about the tramlines that allowed starships to jump from system to system without having to cross the gulf of interstellar space. Mastering drive fields should certainly give them the technology to locate the tramlines and jum
p through them ... unless, of course, they’d somehow managed to miss one or more applications of the technology. Humanity had certainly missed at least one before the First Interstellar War.

  “We didn't see any sign of them in the previous system,” he mused. “Did we?”

  “No, sir,” Katy said. “We’ll go through the data again, but we were thorough. I don’t think we missed anything.”

  “And if they don’t have access to the tramlines, they won’t be able to reach the system,” Francis said. He opened his eyes and studied the display. “They won’t be able to reach us.”

  “Or they may have decided the system was useless,” Katy pointed out. “There was only one planet, sir, and it made Pluto look big.”

  Francis shrugged. There were quite a few human groups that would have considered the system a perfect place for a settlement, one nicely isolated from the temptations of the modern world. But then, maybe they didn’t have access to the tramlines ...or, perhaps, to the weaker tramlines the Tadpoles had learned to access. They might not have been able to progress much further even after they left their system.

  Or they might have been able to access other systems through the other tramlines, he mused, and merely decided to leave a seemingly-useless system alone.

  He glanced at the communications officer. “Have you been able to pull anything useful from their radio chatter?”

  “Not as yet, sir,” the communications officer said. “I was expecting something visual, but everything we’ve picked up appears to be encrypted.”

  “Or they’re so alien that we can't understand their chatter,” Katy offered. “It took us months to glean anything from captured Tadpole databases.”

  Francis nodded, slowly.

  “Tactical,” he said, “do you believe we are in any danger of being discovered?”

  “No, sir,” the tactical officer said. “Unless they have some detection system I’ve never heard of, Captain, we should be safe.”

  Francis felt a stab of disappointment. Standing orders strictly forbade making any attempt at First Contact without heavy reinforcements on call, just in case the encounter turned violent, unless there was no other choice. If the aliens had discovered Magellan, he could have attempted to communicate with them and ensured his place in the history books ...

  “Then we will reverse course and jump back out of the system,” he said. “Once we link up with Livingston, we’ll make our way back to the nearest naval base. The Admiralty will put together a contact mission and, hopefully, we’ll be on it.”

  “Aye, sir,” the helmsman said.

  Katy frowned. “The nearest large-scale base is a Tadpole base, sir.”

  Francis nodded. The Tadpoles had shown no real interest in the pre-space Vesy, but he was sure they’d be more than interested in a spacefaring race. And he was fairly sure they wouldn't try to keep the information for themselves. They just didn't seem to have the same capability for deception as humans.

  He took one last look at the display, watching the alien ships, then nodded to himself.

  “We’ll be back,” he said, as Magellan approached the tramline. “And we’ll have a great many friends with us.”

  Chapter One

  “Welcome back, Susan,” Mrs Blackthorn said. “Or should I call you Commander?”

  “Susan is fine,” Commander Susan Onarina said, as she clambered out of the car. “It would feel strange to have you address me by rank.”

  “Hanover Towers is diminished by your absence,” Mrs Blackthorn assured her. “But we are proud of your success.”

  Susan kept the doubt off her face with the ease of long practice. She would have been surprised if Mrs Blackthorn remembered her as anything more than a trouble-maker, one of the girls who had been sent to her for disciplinary action. Her father had been a much-loved, but rather roguish immigrant, her mother a shop-girl with few prospects ... Susan had been a commoner in a school where a good third of the students had aristocratic, government or military connections. She had a feeling the headmistress had probably downloaded and read her school reports just so she could pretend to remember Susan.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she lied, smoothly. School hadn't been that bad, all things considered, but she’d never really seen it as a gateway to wealth, power and success. That had come at the Luna Academy. “And I’m glad to be back.”

  She sighed inwardly as she looked up at the towering school. It had struck her as a castle, when she’d first arrived as a twelve-year-old, but to her older eyes it looked as if its builders had been trying too hard. Four towers, two for boys and two for girls, surrounding a mansion, set within the Scottish Highlands. She winced in remembered pain at memories of long hikes over the mountains, although she had to admit that some of them had been almost enjoyable. There was definitely something to be said for a long walk followed by fish and chips in a cafe near St. Andrews.

  And I never tried to skive off, she thought, ruefully. Father would have been disappointed in me.

  “I’m sure you remember the way,” Mrs Blackthorn said, breaking into her thoughts. “But I’d be happy to escort you, if you wish.”

  “Please,” Susan said. She rather doubted she’d be allowed to wander the school alone, even if she had been invited. Hanover Towers took its security seriously. The guards at the gates had checked her paperwork twice and then searched the car before allowing her to enter the complex. “It’s probably changed since I was last here.”

  “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Mrs Blackthorn said, primly. “Follow me.”

  Susan nodded, curtly, as she caught sight of their reflection in the mirrored door. They made an odd couple; Mrs Blackthorn prim and proper, her entire bearing projecting the image of aristocracy boiled down to its essence, Susan herself tall and dark, wearing her naval dress uniform and her dark hair tied into a long braid that fell over her shoulder and down past her breasts. It hadn't been easy to blend in, not when she was the daughter of an immigrant; she’d been sent to the form mistress twice for fighting before she’d found a group of friends of her own. The Troubles had ensured that the ugly curse of racism still bubbled, just under the surface ...

  She sucked in her breath as they entered the Welcome Hall, where a large portrait of Sir Charles Hanover hung in a place of honour, flanked by portraits of King Charles IV and Princess Elizabeth, the heir presumptive to the throne. Susan had met the princess, during a formal visit to the Luna Academy, but she couldn't say she knew the lady, while too many of her schoolmates could. She sighed, remembering old pains, and then pushed them away firmly. Far too many of her former schoolmates had died during the war.

  “I’ve arranged for the entire school to be present during your speech,” Mrs Blackthorn prattled, distracting Susan from her thoughts. “And then I thought you might want to have a more informal chat with some of the older students, the ones contemplating a naval career in the next couple of years. You can have that in one of the meeting rooms, Susan, and I will have tea and cakes sent in.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said, tightly. It hadn't been her idea to attend. Someone at the Admiralty had noted that she was not only a former student, but on leave and ... requested ... that she give up a day to visit her alma mater and address the students on the wonders of a naval career. “I’ll do my best to answer their questions.”

  Mrs Blackthorn nodded and led her through another wooden door and down a long corridor towards the Great Hall. Unless something had changed since her time, Susan recalled, students weren't permitted in the staff corridor unless they were escorted by a tutor or given a disciplinary slip. Being caught in the corridor - or in the wrong tower - would get a student in hot water, but that hadn't stopped the more daring students trying to run through the corridor without being caught. She’d done it herself a few times before she’d found more interesting ways to get in trouble.

  And there would have been no thrill if it wasn't forbidden, she thought, ruefully. Did I really believe that it
was daring to run down a corridor?

  Susan smiled at the thought, then pasted a fixed smile on her face as Mrs Blackthorn led her through the doors and into a sideroom. She checked her appearance in the mirror as the headmistress hastily consulted with two of her tutors, then sat down to wait. It was nearly twenty minutes before she heard Mrs Blackthorn introducing her to the students, detailing her career in glowing terms. She made it sound as if naval commander meant Susan was in charge of the entire navy!

  At least she didn't have the students waiting all morning, she told herself. It had happened, more than once, when she’d been a student. The early relief at skipping classes had rapidly been replaced by boredom. She’d managed to land herself in hot water, the second time, by smuggling an adventure novel into the room. I guess I’m not that important.