Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Susan nodded, tightly. Starfighter missiles weren't designed for long-range engagements, which gave them an edge; they were both smaller and faster than the weapons carried in Vanguard’s missile tubes. Hitting them was tricky, even when they were making no attempt to evade enemy fire. No human could hope to perform the targeting calculations in time. It was left to the point defence computers, which had a random pattern generator deliberately confusing their fire. There was a very real chance of taking hits ...

  The display flashed red as three missiles struck home. “Contact nukes, Commander,” Mason reported. “Damage to decks ...”

  “Dispatch damage control teams,” Susan ordered, coldly. “Combat damage?”

  “Turret Three is offline, along with a number of point defence cannons and sensor nodes,” Mason said. “Tactical datanet has already adjusted to compensate.”

  Susan nodded. One of the many flaws in pre-war ship design had been a conviction that the datanet would remain operational, if the ship took damage. Successive battles had taught the Royal Navy the folly of that assumption, but it hadn't been until after the war that any sort of permanent fix could be contemplated. The endless series of redundancies built into the network allowed the overall system to adapt to anything less than the destruction of the entire hull ... although, she had to admit, if the ship took heavy damage, the command network was likely to be completely irrelevant.

  She sucked in a breath as she studied the display, leaving Mason and his subordinates to handle the damage control teams. The enemy starfighters were swooping around, ready to try to pour fire into the gash in the hull. It would have worked against another ship, even the legendary Ark Royal, but Vanguard’s designers had woven armour through her decks, rendering the effort pointless. The damage control teams were already sealing off the exposed sections; the enemy starfighters could pour their fire into the gash to their heart’s content, without doing serious damage. Even another nuke could be contained.

  Unless they come up with something new, she thought, grimly. There was an element of randomness built into the simulation, after all, with concepts taken from all manner of pre-space books and movies. Who knew just what could go wrong? And if it does ...

  “Enemy escorts are peeling off,” Mason reported. “They’re turning to face us.”

  “Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam, target the escorts with our main guns,” Susan ordered. If the Tadpoles were foolish enough to come within her range, she was happy to take advantage of it. But then, they didn't have much choice. “Continue targeting the starfighters with point defence.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said. A handful of red icons separated themselves from the other starfighters and raced away, back towards their carrier. “I think ...”

  She broke off. Susan sighed.

  “Spit it out,” she ordered.

  “I think they’re the bombers,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said. “They’d need to rearm.”

  “Tag them as priority targets, when they return,” Susan ordered. Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam was almost certainly right. The Tadpoles would have to rearm their bombers if they had any hope of winning the battle. “Try to take them down before they have an opportunity to launch their missiles.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said. She paused. “Enemy destroyers are entering weapons range.”

  Susan leaned forward. The Tadpoles had to know Vanguard could run their carrier down, given enough time; their only real hope was to slow the battleship - or ram her. Ark Royal had killed a Tadpole superdreadnaught through ramming the enemy ship, after all; there was no way to be sure what would happen if a destroyer rammed a battleship, but she suspected the impact would, at the very least, cripple the bigger ship.

  “Fire,” she ordered.

  The Tadpoles had designed the plasma cannons, but human scientists had taken the original concept and run with it. HMS Warspite had mounted a giant plasma cannon, easily five or six times more powerful than the largest weapon the Tadpoles had designed and used it, a decade ago, to cripple an Indian carrier. And Vanguard’s plasma cannons were larger still, designed to avoid many of the problems that had made Warspite a flawed tool at best, a one-shot weapon at worst. The turrets spat out fire at a terrifying rate.

  Targeting isn't perfect, she thought, as one enemy destroyer blew apart under Vanguard’s fire. Standard countermeasures against mass drivers work just as well against our cannons.

  “Turret One reports overheating,” Mason said. “Their magnetic bottles are threatening to lose containment.”

  “Tell them to discontinue firing and run an emergency cooling routine,” Susan ordered, sharply. The simulation erred on the side of caution, when it came to predicting just how many shots could be fired before the weapons started to run into problems. It would be better to have more shots to fire in combat, rather than less. “If necessary, tell them to strip out the magnetic bottle and replace it with a fresh one.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Mason said.

  “Two more destroyers taken out,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said. The exultation in her voice made Susan smile. Had she ever been so young? “The remaining destroyers are opening fire.”

  “Order the point defence to take out their missiles,” Susan said. The Tadpoles were playing it smart, she noted; they wanted to force her to cope with multiple threats at the same time. But Vanguard was practically designed to handle multiple threats. “Turrets are to continue engaging the destroyers; close-range weapons are to handle the starfighters. Random pattern fire.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.

  Susan gritted her teeth as the destroyers launched a full salvo of missiles towards the battleship. They’d be easier targets than the starfighter missiles, but she would be astonished if they were contact nukes. It was much more likely they were bomb-pumped laser warheads, which would make them far more dangerous. Powerful laser beams wouldn't be enough to cripple the ship, but there was always the prospect of hitting something vital and causing a chain reaction. Vanguard was designed to keep such disasters from happening, yet the countermeasures had never been fully tested. The only way to be sure was to take the ship into battle.

  She smiled as another enemy destroyer blew apart, the remainder still ramping up their drives as they closed in on the battleship. They’d find it easier to score hits at that range, but it was clear they also intended to ram. Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam, thankfully, seemed to have them under control; the final destroyers barely had time to launch a second salvo of missiles before they were blown into vapour. But their last shots might still prove disastrous ...

  “Direct hit, prow superstructure,” Mason reported. More red icons flashed into existence on the status display. “Damage to inner hull ...”

  “Enemy starfighters concentrating on our rear,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam added. “They’re slipping into missile range.”

  “Launch a shipkiller keyed for remote detonation,” Susan snapped. It wasn't a standard tactic, certainly not with fleet carriers or smaller ships, but those starfighters needed to be stopped. Besides, Vanguard had an excellent chance of surviving the tactic without taking damage. “Now!”

  Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam’s fingers danced over her console, but it was clear she hadn't anticipated the order in advance. It took her several minutes to set up the firing command and, by then, the enemy starfighters had already started to launch their missiles. The computers insisted that five of them had been taken out, but two survived long enough to slam into the hull and detonate. Susan felt her lips thin in disapproval - she couldn't help being reminded of Mrs Blackthorn - at the results. It had been far from perfect.

  That’s what simulations are for, she reminded herself, sternly. Sort out these problems before we actually have to take the ship into battle.

  “One of our drive compartments has been disabled,” Mason reported. “Main Engineering requests permission to shut it down completely.”

  “Granted
,” Susan said. Vanguard was overpowered, after all. They could survive losing a single drive compartment. “Order the entire section sealed off.”

  “Aye, Commander,” Mason said.

  Susan nodded as she looked at the display. There was little hope of repairing the damage to the drive compartment, certainly not quickly enough to matter. She’d have the damage control teams concentrating their efforts on damage that could be repaired in a hurry. The battleship wouldn't have any difficulty making her way back to a shipyard, where the drive compartment could be replaced with ease. It might need to be rebuilt from scratch, but it could be done.

  “Enemy carrier coming into range,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said. Thankfully, she hadn't come to pieces over her failure. That would have severely hampered her career. “She’s locking her weapons on us.”

  “Open fire,” Susan ordered.

  She allowed her lips to curve into a nasty smile as Vanguard opened fire, slamming plasma bolt after plasma bolt into the enemy carrier. It was anyone’s guess just how much armour the Tadpoles had been adding to their latest generation of fleet carriers, but even Vanguard would have had problems standing up to such an immense weight of fire. And the fleet carrier, like almost all fleet carriers from before the war, mounted almost no heavy weapons on its hull. Ark Royal had been the only ship on both sides that had been effectively a fleet carrier and a battleship rolled into one.

  And even the latest fleet carriers try to avoid combat, she thought. The Indians learned that lesson the hard way.

  She watched, feeling a flicker of cold delight, as the enemy carrier was systematically ripped apart. The simulation had assumed a heavy layer of armour, but not enough to save the carrier; Vanguard inflicted too much damage, within a minute, for the carrier to have a hope of escape. A final salvo slammed deep into her hull, setting off a chain reaction that blew the entire starship into flaming debris. Susan, who had watched far too many recordings from the Battle of New Russia, couldn't help thinking that it was only just.

  “Enemy starfighters are converging on us,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam reported. “I think they’re going to ram!”

  “It isn't as if they have anywhere else to go,” Susan said. The Tadpoles had never surrendered, although she knew a handful of prisoners had been taken in the early days of the war. Even if they did surrender, keeping the prisoners alive and reasonably healthy would be tricky. Vanguard just wasn't equipped to take non-human prisoners. “Take them out, if you can ...”

  The final enemy starfighters closed in, firing desperately. Two launched missiles, but the remainder just slammed into the hull. Susan quietly assessed the damage and concluded, to her relief, that it was minimal. The only serious damage had been losing the drive compartment and she would have had to lose two more before it became a major problem.

  And the damage was only simulated, she thought. A real battle might inflict much less.

  Her thoughts darkened. Or much more ...

  She tapped a code into her console, ending the simulation. The displays froze. She'd have to reconnect the secondary bridge to the main command network before leaving the compartment, but that could wait. Right now, she needed to address the crew.

  “That went well,” she said. She glanced from face to face. Mason looked calm and composed, while the two midshipmen looked nervous. They knew they were on the verge of having their performance dissected. “Midshipman Bosworth, Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam, go have a mug of coffee and a bite to eat, then report to my office in one hour. We’ll go through your performance then, once I’ve had a chance to study the reports.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Fitzwilliam said.

  Susan watched the two midshipmen hurry out the hatch, then glanced at Mason. “Thoughts?”

  “I want a mug of coffee too,” Mason said. “Please ...”

  “Get back to work, you slacker,” Susan said, without heat. She checked the time display and smirked, coldly. “You’ve got another two hours in the tactical compartment before you get a break.”

  “Blast,” Mason said.

  He cleared his throat. “Bosworth didn't try to alter course to bring other turrets to bear on the enemy, although it could be argued that he wasn't ordered to do anything of the sort,” he said, more seriously. “Fitzwilliam took far too long to fire the shipkiller. That could have cost us quite badly if we’d been in a real engagement.”

  “True,” Susan agreed. “But it isn't exactly a standard tactic.”

  “No, but it’s one we’re going to have to use,” Mason said. “And we did use it during the war.”

  Susan nodded. The Tadpoles had designed their starfighters to take advantage of human weaknesses, but they’d missed one of the implications of nuclear-armed missiles. They could be geared to produce an EMP, which crippled plasma containment fields and destroyed any Tadpole starfighter unlucky enough to be caught in the blast. It hadn't taken them long to improvise countermeasures, but a couple of minor battles had ended badly for them because their starfighters had practically been wiped out in the first few seconds.

  “We’ll add it to the enhanced training routines,” she said, keying another command into her console. The displays came back to life as the secondary bridge reconnected to the command datanet, showing Vanguard’s slow crawl towards Marina. “And I’ll see you tonight, for dinner.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Mason said. “Have fun castigating the midshipmen.”

  “It’s not fun,” Susan said, dryly. The midshipmen had made mistakes, but neither of them had screwed up too badly. “It’s meant to be a learning experience.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “It feels as if we’re waiting to see the headmaster,” Nathan said, after they’d drunk a mug of coffee each and made their way to the XO’s office. “As if we’re waiting ...”

  “Shut up,” George said. She’d felt nervous before the initiation rite, but this was worse. She had failed to anticipate an order, let alone prepare for it. The XO had good reason to be annoyed with her and, she was morbidly sure, Fraser would rub it in for the next couple of weeks. “This isn’t anything like going to see the headmaster.”

  “A good thing too,” Nathan said. He didn't sound unhappy, but he hadn't screwed up as badly as George. “Back at my old school, they ...”

  “I don’t want to know,” George said. She stopped outside the XO’s office long enough to brace herself, then pressed her fingers to the buzzer. “The worst a headmaster can do is expel you or send you to one of the borstals. That wouldn't be too bad. But here ... we could be kicked off the ship.”

  “I don’t think it would come to that,” Nathan said. “If they kicked us off right now, we’d be trying to breathe vacuum.”

  The hatch hissed open before George could think of a rejoinder. She scowled at Nathan instead, then led the way into the compartment. It was larger than she’d expected, larger than the midshipman sleeping and communications compartments put together ... and yet, at the same time, there was something oddly impersonal about it, as if the XO hadn't had the time to make the space hers. The only personal touch was a photograph of a dark-skinned man, a light-skinned woman and a mixed-race girl who couldn't have been older than seven. It took her a moment to realise that it had to be the XO, long before she’d joined the navy.

  “Stand at ease,” the XO ordered. She was sitting behind her desk, but she wasn't wasting time with petty power games. George’s uncle had told her that anyone who pretended to read a datapad while you were waiting was either an asshole or insecure. “So tell me ... what went wrong during the simulation?”

  “I fucked ... ah, messed up,” George said. “I should have had the shipkiller programmed for launch before we engaged the enemy.”

  The XO lifted her eyebrows. “Really?”

  George nodded. It would have been easy to make excuses, but she had the nasty feeling that the XO wouldn't be impressed if she started explaining, as patiently as she could, why it wasn't her fault. Certainly, she’d had no reason to an
ticipate the order, yet - in hindsight - it was an obvious tactic. Vanguard’s armour could shrug off a contact nuke. A proximity detonation wouldn't even scorch the hull. Why not use a shipkiller to swat starfighters like bugs?

  “One advantage of simulations,” the XO said, after a pause, “is that they allow us to discover such mistakes without being in real danger. How unpleasant do you think it would have been if it was a real engagement?”

  “It would have been very unpleasant, Commander,” George said. She tensed, wondering just what her punishment would be. Fraser’s imagination was both innovative and sadistic, but the XO had many more opportunities for making her life miserable. “They might have fired more missiles into the gash in the hull.”

  “They might, yes,” the XO said. She glanced at a datapad, resting on her desk. “You’re due in the tactical compartment this afternoon, are you not?”