John considered it. “We’d be looking at around five years of construction time,” he said. It might well be optimistic. First-time construction projects always overran. “Might I ask why you wanted me to see this?”
“We’d like you to head the project,” the First Space Lord said.
He held up a hand before John could say a word. “You have a considerable level of experience in active service,” he said. “No one would question your military record. Your experience is also varied; you’ve served as a starfighter pilot, tactical officer, executive officer and finally a captain. And you’ve commanded Warspite, which was conceived as the precursor to Vanguard.”
“Or, in other words, you actually have a good grasp of military realities,” Admiral Fitzwilliam added. “You wouldn't waste time trying to produce something impractical.”
“You’d be an acting Commodore for the duration of your work,” the First Space Lord said. “If you want a ship, once the Vanguard Project is completed or passed to other hands, you would be added to the top of the Naval Register.”
And guaranteed a command, John finished, silently.
He wasn't blind to the true reason for the discussion, although he had to admit - as much as he hated the thought - he did have the experience to make Vanguard work. His service during the war should guarantee him promotion, but his unusual career path would make it harder for him to be promoted into flag rank. And he lacked the ability to kiss enough asses to make up for such a deficiency. Spending several years riding herd on designers and construction workers who had never seen the elephant was a small price to pay for a future command.
And it would be a challenge. He'd always liked a challenge.
“It would be my honour,” he said, finally. “I will need some time to settle my affairs on Warspite, however.”
“You are entitled to a month of leave in any case,” the First Space Lord said. “As your ship requires some intensive repairs, we believe it would be best to reassign most of your crew to other ships. Warspite will receive a new crew once she leaves the shipyards. I suggest you see her into the yard, then take your leave. Everything should be arranged for you to take command of the project once you return.”
“Understood, sir,” John said, reluctantly.
“You have good reason to be proud of her,” the First Space Lord added. “If her name wasn't already on the naval rolls, John, she would have been added after the war.”
John nodded, proudly. A ship that performed with honour would be guaranteed a namesake for almost as long as the Royal Navy existed. Warspite had had predecessors, of course, but she deserved no less. Her successor would carry her name with pride.
“And you too will go down in history,” the First Space Lord added. “The one-shot killer of a carrier.”
“It might have been a mistake to give that interview,” John conceded, reluctantly.
“I doubt it,” the First Space Lord said. “My office will get in touch, Captain. And, once again, congratulations.”
John rose, saluted and left the compartment.
***
“You haven’t given him an easy job, sir,” James observed.
“No,” the First Space Lord agreed. “He’s caught between you and Yeager. On the other hand, he does have the experience to tell you both to go pound sand if necessary.”
James smiled. He’d never dared tell a superior officer to go pound sand and he had powerful connections to protect him. But he understood the unspoken warning. There was no longer any time for theoretical debates. The Royal Navy needed to get Vanguard into service as soon as possible, before the next war ...
... Because, if there was one thing James had learned during his years in the navy, it was that trouble could blow up at terrifying speed.
And we have to be ready, he told himself. There were at least two other known intelligent races out there - and one of them had pushed humanity to the wall. It was almost certain there would be others - and some of them might be even less friendly than the Tadpoles - or simply so alien that communication was impossible. Who knows what’s waiting at the end of the next tramline?
The End
The Ark Royal Universe Will Return In
Vanguard
Coming Soon!
Afterword
Let me run a scenario past you.
Harry - nine years old - earns money by doing chores for various people in the neighbourhood. Each Sunday, he gets around £50. He puts most of that money in the bank, but keeps a small amount to buy sweets and crisps for the next week at school. That Monday, he buys a packet of crisps and takes them to school ... where they are snatched by ten year old Dudley.
“Let’s compromise,” smirks Dudley. “I’ll have half your crisps.”
If that isn't outrageous enough, consider this small change.
A teacher hurries over to where the two boys are glaring at each other. “Compromise,” she says. She has neither the time nor the inclination to establish what’s actually happening beyond the basics. “Share the crisps out fairly. Half each.”
There’s nothing fair about either scenario, is there? Harry earned his money, Harry earned the right to buy his crisps ... why exactly is Dudley entitled to half of them? Anyone with half a brain would argue, of course, that Dudley isn’t entitled to any of the crisps. There is literally no room for compromise because there are no grounds for compromise. One might as well assert that a successful burglar is allowed to keep half of what he hauls off from the house he robs.
It is, of course, obvious what’s really happening. In the first example, Dudley is relishing in the belief that his superior might makes right. His offer to return half the crisps is a declaration that he, not Harry, has the right to determine what happens to them. But in the second example, the voice of authority - a timid authority, unwilling to uphold the rule of law - supports him. The idea that Dudley is in the wrong - that there is no way to escape the simple fact that Dudley is in the wrong - is not something she can express. Either she believes that children should share or she’s unwilling to confront Dudley directly. And it pretty much sucks to be Harry.
That is a playground example. However, such events happen far too often in the sphere of international politics. An aggressive group - or nation - believes it can pick on a weaker nation. When it does, the target is faced with the task of either accepting the bullying or doing something about it.
The Falklands War is one such event. Despite the islands being a British possession since 1840 (Britain’s interest in the islands began much earlier, but they became a Crown Colony in 1840), despite the clearly expressed wish of the islanders to remain Britain, Argentina launched an invasion of the islands in 1982. (To be fair to the Argentineans, the British Foreign Office had been sending very mixed messages on the subject for years.) There was very little room for compromise; the only possible outcomes were Britain recovering the islands or the Argentineans getting to keep them. It took a small war for Britain to dislodge the enemy from their ill-gotten gains.
In hindsight, it was a very close run thing. If Britain had lost a carrier (or Argentina had waited for six months, whereupon one of the UK’s carriers would have been sold), continuing the war would have been impossible. Or, if Argentina had planned better, the counter-offensive might never have got further than a bloody failure on the beaches. Or, if Argentina had done a better job of rallying Third World support and successfully muddied the issue, it might have become politically difficult for the UK to continue the war. And, for that matter, if the UK Government had been a little less resolute, it might have been impossible to win.
But the war had to be fought. There was never any real room for compromise, not when the question was who ended up with the islands. Either Britain kept them or Argentina took them. Once the ships were on their way, there was no middle ground ...
... And, even if Argentina had tried to push for joint control (also against the wishes of the islanders themselves) it wouldn't have made them any
better, morally speaking, than Dudley offering to let Harry keep half his crisps.
I’m not entirely sure, to be honest, that the UK Government - even Thatcher - truly understood the problem. Politicians are always looking for common ground and compromise. The long debate over using British submarines to sink enemy capital ships - and then the attempt to lie over just what General Belgrano was doing before she was sunk - suggests, very strongly, that they didn’t. There was no hope of a peaceful solution because there was no hope either finding a workable compromise or convincing the Junta, which had staked its power on the war, to withdraw without a fight. Their hesitation over taking the offensive - by trying to sink the enemy aircraft carrier as well as General Belgrano - does not speak well of them.
I’ve heard it argued that the decision to not sink the ships - at least at first - was taken in hopes of making it easier for the Junta to back down (by not giving them a bloody flag to wave.) Such an argument is simply unworkable; the enemy Junta could not back down without risking their power and position. On the other hand, the loss of several capital ships might have convinced the Junta that it was time to fold before British troops made their way to Port Stanley. At the very least, it would have both removed a major threat and served as a demonstration of Britain’s power, resolution and reach.
We - Britain - won the Falklands War. Or, rather, I should say we won the first Falklands War. Like all limited and localised wars (the Gulf War of 1991 being another example) the Falklands War failed to secure a decisive result. Argentina continues to maintain her claim to the Falklands, she continues to harass the islanders and it is not unlikely that, one day, her government will make another try at seizing the islands by force. The next time, we may face an enemy who has learned from the past.
As far as the Falklands are concerned, Argentina is the local bully. And the only way to stop a bully is to make it damn clear that bullying will only result in punishment.
The ongoing Falklands Dispute - and countless other political struggles around the world - only underline another problem that had surfaced over the past thirty years. Conflicts - ranging from localised disputes to all-out war - have drawn in other powers, not as actual fighters, but as ‘observers,’ ‘peace monitors,’ and ‘honest brokers.’ Such missions may be well-intentioned (that is hotly debated) yet they tend to share certain characteristics. Chief amongst them is a touching (and completely misplaced) faith in compromise, that - with enough help from the outsiders - the locals can find a way to get along.
This isn’t too surprising, really. Distance lends rather more than just enchantment; distance lends detachment and ignorance. The outsiders - like the school teacher I mentioned above - may outline a high-minded concept of ‘fairness’ that has nothing to do with real fairness. They are rarely capable of grasping the subtleties of any given conflict zone; instead, they tend to buy into a simplified narrative that rarely bears any resemblance to reality. It is for this reason that many states involved in wars positively hate outsiders who expect to be humoured, but rarely understand what is going on. In conflicts as wide-ranging as the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Sri Lankan Civil War, outsiders have often prolonged the conflict rather than bringing it to an end.
The former, sadly, is practically the poster child. One solution put forward by outsiders is the ‘two-state’ solution, a division of land into Israel and Palestine. It sounds reasonable, on the surface, but it faces a number of serious problems. For Israel, the solution would require the removal of a number of settlements within Palestinian territories (which would cause major political problems for any Israeli Government that dared to accept the solution) while giving their enemies time to regroup and prepare for a resumption of the war. For Palestine, the solution would probably lead to civil war, the growth of a theocratic state and an eventual resumption of the war.
I would not trust an outside nation to pass judgement on British affairs. How could they truly understand the realities on the ground? But even if I did, there is no outside power with both the ability and the will to impose a solution. In the end, outside meddling tends to merely prolong conflict - and, with it, unimaginable levels of human suffering.
***
But that’s enough of complex international politics and skulduggery.
The first three books in this series were intended to follow the titular starship, Ark Royal, performing the first task of the Royal Navy; defending Britain and carrying the war into enemy territory. By contrast, the Warspite series was supposed to follow the tasks performed by the Royal Navy in peacetime; surveying new star systems for settlement, providing disaster relief services, chasing down pirates, evacuating British citizens from danger zones and fighting a limited war to uphold British interests. The setting may be science-fictional, but the present-day Royal Navy does all of those and more.
I hope to write a third trilogy set within the same universe, following the adventures of HMS Vanguard when the Second Interstellar War breaks out, and a stand-alone book covering the Battle of Earth. My current plan is to write either Vanguard I or The Longest Day in early December, although we will see.
If you enjoyed this book, please feel free to leave a review on Amazon, post on my Facebook page or join the conversations on my discussion forum. (Links on my site: www.chrishanger.net) All comments, reviews, suggestions, spelling mistakes and suchlike are gratefully received.
Thank you.
Christopher G. Nuttall
Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2015
Appendix: Glossary of UK Terms and Slang
[Author’s Note: I’ve tried to define every incident of specifically UK slang in this glossary, but I can’t promise to have spotted everything. If you spot something I’ve missed, please let me know and it will be included.]
Beasting/Beasted - military slang for anything from a chewing out by one’s commander to outright corporal punishment or hazing. The latter two are now officially banned.
Binned - SAS slang for a prospective recruit being kicked from the course, then returned to unit (RTU).
Bootnecks - slang for Royal Marines. Loosely comparable to ‘Jarhead.’
Donkey Wallopers - slang for the Royal Horse Artillery.
Fortnight - two weeks. (Hence the terrible pun, courtesy of the Goon Show, that Fort Knight cannot possibly last three weeks.)
‘Get stuck into’ - ‘start fighting.’
‘I should coco’ - ‘you’re damned right.’
Levies - native troops. The Ghurkhas are the last remnants of native troops from British India.
Lorries - trucks.
MOD - Ministry of Defence. (The UK’s Pentagon.)
Panda Cola - Coke as supplied by the British Army to the troops.
RFA - Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Rumbled - discovered/spotted.
SAS - Special Air Service.
SBS - Special Boat Service
Squaddies - slang for British soldiers.
Stag - guard duty.
TAB (tab/tabbing) - Tactical Advance to Battle.
Walt - Poser, i.e. someone who claims to have served in the military and/or a very famous regiment. There’s a joke about 22 SAS being the largest regiment in the British Army - it must be, because of all the people who claim to have served in it.
Wanker - Masturbator (jerk-off). Commonly used as an insult.
Wanking - Masturbating.
Yank/Yankee - Americans
Coming Soon - The Oncoming Storm (Angel in the Whirlwind I)
Cover Blurb
In the year 2420, war looms between the galaxy’s two most powerful empires: the tyrannical Theocracy and the protectionist Commonwealth. Caught in the middle sits the occupied outpost system Cadiz, where young officer and aristocrat Katherine “Kat” Falcone finds herself prematurely promoted at the behest of her powerful father. Against her own wishes—Kat is sent to command the Commonwealth navy’s newest warship, Lightning.
Determined to prove she has value beyond her family
name, Kat struggles to earn her crew’s respect and find her footing as the youngest captain in naval history. She soon discovers the situation on Cadiz is even worse than anyone in power anticipated. War isn’t just a possibility—it is imminent. Yet the admiral in position to bolster defences refuses to prepare for a fight. Can Kat find a way to investigate the enemy, alert the Commonwealth, and whip an entire fleet into fighting shape before the Theocracy’s war machine destroys everything she holds dear?
Free Sample
Prologue
Admiral Junayd passed through the security field and stepped into the conference room, careful to remove his cap as he bowed to the First Speaker and the Lord Cleric. They nodded in return, pressing their hands together in greeting, then motioned him to a chair at the round table. Junayd sat down and composed himself, despite the growing excitement running through his mind. The greatest military operation in the Theocracy’s history was about to begin. It was no time to allow his enthusiasm to overpower his common sense.
A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6) Page 42
