Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “The guns should be recharged in ten minutes,” Simpson said. “We’ll have plenty of time to engage.”

  George nodded, not trusting herself to speak. They could fight back, but it wouldn't last long enough to keep them alive. She wondered, suddenly, if anyone would notice if she ran down to the recuperation room and kissed Peter Barton. Would anyone give a damn if they were about to die?

  But you can't abandon your station, she told herself, as she sat up and checked the command links. They had been repaired, but they wouldn't last indefinitely. It’s time to prepare for the final battle.

  She hoped that her uncle would know what had happened, that he’d know she died bravely ... but she knew she’d never know. She’d recorded one last message for her family during the last transit, a brief message telling them she loved them and wishing them the very best in the future ... there was no time to send a final message. All she could do was pray.

  “The main control system is online,” she reported. “We will be ready to engage the enemy when the guns are charged.”

  “Good,” Simpson said. “And now we wait.”

  ***

  Henry knew, all too well, that war had many twists and turns, that battles thought won could be lost in a split-second, if the odds shifted with terrifying speed. And yet, he couldn't help feeling a bitter frustration when he studied the display. The newcomers had taken immense losses - losing so many carriers had to hurt - but they were still coming.

  Let this be their Stalingrad, he thought, darkly. Let them waste all their mobile fleets on us.

  He shook his head, cursing the odds. Maybe the aliens had been dared into a death match, maybe they had wasted all their carriers in their attempt to take Tadpole-453, but he doubted it. Two intelligent races had to have a large civilisation, one easily big enough to produce far more carriers and other warships. Vanguard would hurt the enemy badly, he was sure, but they’d be back. Tadpole-453 would merely be the first world to fall as the invasion continued to dig deep into Tadpole space.

  But we’ll have time to come to their aid, he told himself. He’d recorded final messages for the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister and Janelle, the former two making it clear that humanity had a treaty obligation to assist the Tadpoles. Can they fight two other races at the same time?

  He sighed, grimly. He’d sent a private message to Janelle, warning her to take the kids and leave Tadpole Prime. There was the very distinct possibility of Tadpole Prime turning into a war zone - the Tadpoles might be able to hide below the waves, but the human settlers couldn’t - and he wouldn't risk exposing his daughters to that. There was the very real danger of having them pressed into the Line of Succession - he hoped Janelle would have the moral courage to refuse when the time came - but even that was better than being caught up in the fighting. This new race might even toast planets for fun!

  “Mr. Ambassador,” Felicity said, breaking into his thoughts. “Look!”

  Henry turned to peer at the display - and stared.

  ***

  “Captain,” Charlotte snapped. “I’m picking up a message from the emplaced sensor buoys. Seventy-three ships are entering the system from Tramline One!”

  Susan blinked in surprise. Tramline One led deeper into Tadpole space; surely, even if the enemy had found a way to circumvent Tadpole-453, they wouldn't be sending their ships through the tramline to assist the invasion force. No, a fleet coming from that direction had to be friendly ...

  “Get me an ID,” she snapped. “Who are they?”

  “Working on it,” Charlotte said. There was a long pause. “They’re friendly, Captain; their IFF codes mark them as Tadpole ships!”

  “They must have dispatched reinforcements,” Mason breathed. “And they got here in the nick of time!”

  Susan nodded, curtly. The enemy could finish off the contact fleet and the system’s defenders, but they’d be destroyed in turn by the newcomers. Five carriers, seven superdreadnaughts and over a dozen mid-sized cruisers - escorted by entire fleets of starfighters - were a damn near irresistible force. There was no hope of the enemy pulling off a victory now, unless they had reinforcements of their own on the way. And even then ...

  Let them engage, she thought, nastily. We’ll bleed them and the Tadpoles will crush them.

  She studied the red icons on the display, wondering just what was going through the alien minds. Press the offensive, despite the shifting odds? There had been human societies where that had been the only right answer, despite the potential for catastrophic defeat. Or fall back, conceding defeat and preserving what remained of their mobile forces? She would have withdrawn at once, even if she’d known that far greater reinforcements were on the way. It wasn't as if the combined fleet was in any condition to take the offensive.

  Choose, you bastards, she thought. Choose and get it over with!

  “They must know the reinforcements are coming,” Mason said. He sounded torn between hope and fear. “The ships aren't cloaked. They’ll be picking up traces of their presence, won’t they?”

  “They should,” Charlotte said. “I think ...”

  She broke off. “Captain, the alien ships are reversing course,” she reported. “They’re heading back to the tramline.”

  So there are limits to their aggression, Susan thought. On the display, the alien craft were slowly turning in a long arc that would eventually take them back to the tramline. But even a very aggressive man can see the dangers in picking a fight with someone stronger than him.

  “Order two of the screen to cloak and shadow the alien ships,” she said. “I want to know if they either reverse course for the second time or link up with reinforcements.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Parkinson said.

  Susan watched, grimly, as long hours passed. The alien ships didn’t slow down; they crossed the tramline and vanished, jumping out of the system without even bothering to drop mines or do anything else to delay pursuit. Not that it would have slowed down a counteroffensive for long, she knew, but at least it would have counted for something. The shadows vanished through the tramline too. She had no doubt that the Tadpoles would start picketing the next system as soon as they could.

  “Order the crew to stand down from battlestations,” she said, once the final alien craft had vanished. “The marines are to prepare themselves to board the drifting hulk.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Mason said. He smiled as the lights returned to normal. “Do you think the Admiralty will be paying out prize money?”

  “Let us hope so,” Susan said. She had a nasty feeling she’d need money for the legal defence fund. Now the battleship had returned to friendly space, she’d have to report to the Admiralty Post on Tadpole Prime and make a full confession. Did saving Vanguard from an alien ambush compensate for relieving Captain Blake of command? “Inform Captain Harper that we intend to board the hulk, then move us into position.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said. A dull whistle ran through the ship as the drives engaged, suggesting that one of the drive field nodes was out of alignment. “We’ll be near the ship in ten minutes.”

  “Hold us at a safe distance,” Susan added. “Just in case the hulk isn't quite as dead as she seems.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said. “We should have no difficulty keeping our hull safe.”

  Susan nodded, then rose. “Commander Mason, you have the bridge,” she said. She had a multitude of reports to write, starting with commendations for officers and crew who had performed well. “Inform me if the situation changes.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Mason said. “I have the bridge.”

  ***

  “I think I’ve got emotional whiplash,” George said, as she stepped through the hatch into middy country. “Is that normal?”

  Fraser looked up. “Walter bought it,” he said, as if he hadn't heard what she’d said. There was a grim note to his voice. “He was attached to one of the damage control teams when it was too close to a direct hit.”

  George swal
lowed. Midshipman Walter Haworth hadn't been a close friend, but she’d liked him. There just hadn't been the time to get to know the young man as well as she would have liked ...

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Fraser was clearly saddened at the death. “He was a decent man.”

  “He was,” Fraser agreed. He produced another plastic box and passed it to her. “I think he would have been promoted at the end of this cruise. He’d shown that he could handle the tasks put in front of him ...”

  He sighed. “Maybe the paperwork was already done,” he added. “They’ll bury him as a lieutenant.”

  “I hope so,” George said. Her problems seemed minor, somehow. “He deserved better.”

  Fraser nodded, then started emptying Walter’s locker. George watched, shaking her head in some amusement, as a handful of paper letters were deposited into the box, followed by a set of intimate photographs of a green-skinned woman. She couldn't help blushing as she looked at them, wondering just who she was. When had Walter had a chance to meet a woman from the Eden Colony?

  “She lived on the moon,” Fraser said. “Walter met her during a pub crawl and they became intimate. She was a runaway from the Eden Colony, I think.”

  George looked up at him. “Were they going to get married?”

  “I don’t know,” Fraser said. “Her skin ... far too many people make assumptions about her, based on the colour of her skin. It wouldn't be hard for her to have the tint removed, but she kept it. I don’t know why.”

  “They’re meant to be devoted to pleasure,” George recalled. “Is that true?”

  “I’ve never been to Eden,” Fraser said, curtly. He finished dumping personal possessions into the box and sealed it. “But they were very sweet together. The battle was won, George, but the cost was still high.”

  “Yes, sir,” George said.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “The face of the enemy,” Henry said.

  It felt strange to be back on Tadpole Prime, after wearing shipboard uniform for the last two months, and stranger still to see men in shorts and women in bikinis staring back at him. A handful of officers from the fleet, looking disgustingly out of place in shipsuits, seemed unsure just what to do with themselves. He had advised Captain Harper and Susan to wear something more suitable for the swimming pool than the briefing room, but both of them had seen fit to ignore him. They’d be sweating like pigs until they returned to their ships.

  He pushed the thought aside as he studied the alien body, one of many recovered from the dead carrier. The alien was shorter than he’d expected, with a fox-like face covered in fur and dark beady eyes. He - the xenospecialists thought he was a male, although the genital region was thoroughly mangled - had clawed hands, muscular legs and what looked like a retractable penis. They hadn't even begun to unravel the complexities of the alien biology yet, but Henry couldn't help thinking that the aliens would be formidable opponents, if he had to face one hand-to-hand.

  “We recovered seventeen bodies in reasonable condition,” he continued. “There’s a full briefing packet in the datanet, but we still know very little about them. For one thing, we don’t know what the second race looks like, even though we recovered biological traces that suggest that both races serve on the same ships.”

  A Russian held up a hand. “You recovered no bodies?”

  “No intact bodies,” Henry confirmed. “The researchers may be able to deduce an approximation of what the aliens look like, from the biological samples we’ve recovered, but so far they haven't produced any meaningful results. All they can really say about the second species is that it definitely didn't evolve on the same world as their allies.”

  He took a breath. “Furthermore, we were unable to recover any samples of alien technology,” he added. “The carrier was so badly damaged that most of her systems were destroyed, either directly by Vanguard or through a form of limited self-destruct. Our researchers have been able to tell us ... interesting ... things about their hulls, but very little else. Their FTL communications system, for example, is still a total mystery.”

  “The evidence is purely circumstantial,” a Chinese representative said. Henry couldn't help thinking she looked good in her bikini. He reminded himself, firmly, that he was a married man. “There may be no such system.”

  “The evidence is quite strong,” Captain Harper said, firmly. “They reacted impossibly fast, unless they had some way to send messages at FTL speeds.”

  “And the first contact mission was botched,” the representative continued. “The fleet should have been more careful.”

  Admiral Liberec cleared his throat. “I have reviewed all the sensor recordings from the moment the fleet entered UXS-469 to its hasty jump to UXS-470,” the Frenchman said. He sounded rather irked by the remark. “The analysts on Earth may find something I have missed, but for the moment I believe that the contact fleet did everything right. There was no reason to think that the fleet wasn't alone in UXS-469, or that the unknown aliens intended to launch a surprise attack. Watching the fleet, even stalking it, would have made sense; launching an all-out attack intended to destroy the fleet speaks of hostile intentions. There is nothing innocent about their activities.”

  He took a breath. “Furthermore, two successive attempts were made to hail the aliens when they jumped into Tadpole-453,” he added. “They did not respond. We have to assume that they are hostile, irredeemably hostile, until proven otherwise.”

  “Correct,” Henry said. “The Tadpoles have formally activated the mutual assistance clauses in the treaty. Please inform your governments.”

  He kept his face expressionless with an effort. None of them would be very pleased at having to inform their superiors that a whole new war had broken out, but there was no choice. They had signed the treaties, after all. And besides, fighting the enemy outside human space was better than fighting them in the skies of Earth. He could only hope that human governments would see it that way.

  But we lost over twenty thousand personnel in the first battle alone, he thought, numbly. No government could afford to ignore such losses.

  “I will be returning to Earth to brief my government personally,” he concluded. It wasn't something he was looking forward to, but he really had no choice. “If any of you wish to depart on Vanguard or her escorts, please inform her commander before her planned departure date.”

  The room emptied rapidly, diplomats heading back to their apartments to go through the full set of reports, line by line, before writing messages to their governments. Henry spoke briefly to Captain Harper - who would have overall command of the remaining human ships, at least until Earth dispatched someone more senior - and then headed home himself. The skies were already darkening, casting long shadows over the settlement. He couldn’t help thinking that it was a portent of change to come.

  Janelle met him at the door, wearing a pair of bikini briefs and nothing else. “The girls are with a friend,” she said huskily, as she pulled him into an embrace. “And I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” Henry said. He kicked the door closed as they stumbled onto the sofa, his hands already fumbling with her briefs. “It’s been far too long.”

  Afterwards, with the rain pelting down from the dark skies, they sat together and went through the reports. Janelle was cleared for everything, up to and including MOST SECRET: she was, to all intents and purposes, his naval attaché. He listened to her reactions, scribbling down notes to himself; he’d have to take them - and her - back to Earth. There was no way he was leaving his family on Tadpole Prime.

  “The girls will hate it,” Janelle said, when he broached the subject. “This is their home.”

  “Tadpole Prime isn't that far from the front,” Henry pointed out. He wasn't fool enough to think he could dictate to her. Janelle had an inner core of strength that made her surprisingly formidable. “The aliens could attack this planet at any moment, love, and the settlement is a strikingly obvious target.”

  J
anelle ran her hand through her long dark hair. “It won’t be easy for them to settle on Earth,” she said, “particularly if some bastard tells them about their heritage. They grew up here.”

  Henry nodded. His daughters hadn't even passed their first decade, yet they already spoke several languages and chatted freely to everyone. Tadpole Prime was safe, safe in a way Earth wasn’t. He didn’t want to send them to boarding school on Earth, not when they’d probably be bullied merely for having close ties to the crown. But keeping them on an estate wasn't a good idea either. Hell, they’d have to get used to cold weather. Tadpole Prime was hotter and wetter than anywhere in Britain.