... And besides, she acknowledged quietly as she went back to work, if the visitors were hostile there was nothing she could do about it anyway.
Chapter One
“Captain on the bridge!”
Captain Sir Stephen Shields stepped through the hatch and onto the bridge, taking time to note the crewmen who acknowledged his arrival and the crewmen who knew better than to take their eyes off their console, even to greet their commanding officer. Stephen had served under enough commanding officers who’d demanded respect from everyone - and left him with a complete lack of confidence in their leadership abilities - to know better than to demand such respect for himself. A helmsman should not look up from his console, whatever the reason.
He acknowledged Commander Daniel Newcomb’s salute as the XO stood, vacating the command chair. Stephen sat down, sucking in his breath. HMS Invincible still smelled like a new ship, even though she had been on her shakedown cruise for the last six months. She wouldn't smell any better until she’d actually been to war. But then, he knew he should be grateful for the chance to work out the kinks in the assault carrier’s design. Invincible was the first of her class and had had more than her fair share of problems. None of them had been anything more than mildly embarrassing - no ship ever went through her shakedown cruise without encountering problems - but they’d proven annoying.
And the press is being unusually pugnacious, he thought, crossly. The media was rarely openly friendly to the Royal Navy, but over the last year they’d started to blow the navy’s problems out of all proportion. We have a backed-up toilet and they start saying the entire ship is a waste of money.
It wasn't a pleasant thought. HMS Invincible was the first major combatant in the Royal Navy to put appearance before functionality, despite protests from both serving naval officers and shipyard engineers. The bridge looked to have been copied directly from one of the BBC’s dramas on naval life, right down to the consoles that looked absurdly fragile, as if they would explode if someone looked at them funny. It wasn't that bad a design, he admitted privately, but it was annoying. Stephen would have preferred something that could be repaired on the fly if necessary.
He glanced at his XO. “Status report?”
“Enemy target has just come into range, sir,” Newcomb reported. “She doesn't seem aware of our presence.”
“Very good,” Stephen said. A red icon glowed on the display, beating a steady path towards the nearest tramline. Text bubbles scrolled up beside the icon, calculating vectors and offering prospective interception windows. It looked very neat. “And the masking field?”
“Ready for activation, sir,” Lieutenant-Commander David Arthur said. The tactical officer looked tanned, despite six months onboard ship. “We can slip under it at any moment.”
“Then do so,” Stephen ordered.
He sucked in his breath as the lights dimmed, slightly. The masking field wasn't a full cloaking device, not in the sense that it would hide Invincible from all sensors, but it would make it harder for any enemy ships to get a solid lock on her position. He hoped. The technology had been copied from the Foxes and Cows in the wake of the Second Interstellar War and, so far, it was proving hard to adapt to human ships. Invincible was the first starship designed to carry a masking field and even she had problems. The only saving grace was that the other Great Powers had the same issues with the system.
Or so we are assured, he reminded himself. Great Britain had plenty of secret installations, some in the Home System and some orbiting Britannia, where research could be conducted far from prying eyes. America, France, China and Russia had facilities of their own, he was sure. They won’t share any real breakthroughs with us unless we run into a third hostile alien power.
“Field engaged, sir,” Arthur said. “We should be beyond detection.”
Stephen nodded, curtly. “Helm, move us into intercept position,” he ordered. “Sensors, keep watching them. I want to know the second they detect us.”
“Aye, sir.”
The display updated rapidly, looking curiously bloodless as Invincible slipped after her lone target. It was easy to forget that the red icon represented a real starship, carrying real people ... or that the distances between the ships were hard for groundpounders to comprehend. Or, for that matter, that appearances could be deceiving. Stephen hadn't been told the precise details, of course, but he was sure a surprise was waiting for him. The enemy wouldn't go down without a fight.
“Captain,” Lieutenant Alison Adams said. The Sensor Officer looked perturbed. “I'm picking up a number of spacecraft leaving the asteroid belt and heading for Terra Nova.”
Stephen’s eyes narrowed as he keyed his private console, bringing up the live feed from the long-range passive sensors. There was a surprisingly large amount of traffic in the Terra Nova System, despite the simple fact that Terra Nova’s Provisional Government was about as powerless as Earth’s International Green Party. Perhaps that was why there was so much activity, he reflected wryly. Sol’s asteroid belt was supervised by the Great Powers and the Belt Federation, but no one policed Terra Nova’s outer system. The whole region was a lawless mess, populated by independent colonies, smugglers, and rogue political factions. He dreaded to think what would happen if Terra Nova ever developed the will to impose itself on the asteroid belt. It would be bloody.
He looked at Newcomb. “Assessment?”
Newcomb frowned. “It’s odd, sir,” he said. “There’s no reason to take so many ships to the planet. Unless they’re planning something.”
Stephen nodded, slowly. Terra Nova had very little worth mentioning, certainly nothing that would attract independent shippers. A handful of shore leave facilities existed, he supposed, yet none of them could be considered safe. It wasn't as if it would be difficult to hop through Tramline Alpha and visit Sol. And there was enough orbiting firepower to make life dangerous for any merchant ship. Terra Nova’s factions had often resorted to taking pot-shots at passing freighters when the world’s politics became particularly nasty.
“Communications, pass the alert to the embassy,” he ordered. “Warn them that they may have incoming.”
He gritted his teeth in annoyance as Invincible closed in on her target, unsure what to do. If something was about to explode in the system, he had a responsibility to protect British interests ... such as they were. It wasn't as if there were many, save for a handful of corporate-owned asteroid facilities. Britain had sold her shares in the Terra Nova Colonisation Consortium nearly a century ago. They’d gone for a song, to all intents and purposes. The seeds of disaster had already been clearly visible. And yet, he had a duty ...
“Continue to monitor the situation,” he ordered. “Tactical?”
“We will be in intercept position in two minutes, sir,” Arthur reported. “The dropships and starfighters are primed and ready to go.”
“Good,” Stephen said. “Prepare to launch ...”
The display flashed red. “They got us, sir,” Alison reported. “I don’t know how, but they got us. We just got swept!”
Stephen made a mental note to have a long chat with the boffins. The target ship had known she was being hunted, but still ... they were, theoretically, too far from the target for the enemy to burn through the masking field. There must have been a flicker of turbulence, a faint glimmer of energy that had been unmistakably artificial against the inky blackness of space. Not, he supposed, that it mattered. Their target was already ramping up her drives.
Not that they have a hope of evading us, he thought. The target ship was smaller than Invincible, but there was no way her drives could produce enough speed to outrun the assault carrier. Even if they’d replaced her entire rear hull with drive nodes ... he considered it for a moment, then shook his head. She’d rip herself to bits if she ever ramped her drives up to full power. They let us get too close.
“Drop the masking field,” he ordered. His heart started to race. There was no point in trying to hide now. They’d b
een spotted. “Launch the starfighters, then the dropships. And then order our target to surrender.”
“Fighters away, sir,” Arthur reported. New icons appeared on the display: one squadron holding position near Invincible, just in case the carrier required support, while a second was racing towards its target. “Dropships deploying ... now!”
“No response, sir,” Lieutenant Thomas Morse said. The Communications Officer worked his console for a long moment. “They should be getting our signal.”
“One would hope so,” Stephen agreed, dryly. “Repeat the signal.”
He waited, keeping his face under tight control, for the enemy ship to respond. Very few spacers allowed their communications systems to get broken. A working radio might make the difference between life and death if the ship ran into real trouble. He’d seen quite a few civilian ships where basic maintenance was deferred, for a time, but most of them had been heavily over-engineered. A crew too stupid to keep up with their maintenance in the long run would soon be a dead crew. Space was an unforgiving environment. It simply didn't tolerate carelessness.
And we have a squadron of starfighters bearing down on them, he thought. There was no way that even civilian-grade sensors could miss the starfighters. No one could hope to hide their power signature. That should force them to pay attention ...
The display sparkled. New red icons flashed into existence, glowing with deadly purpose. Stephen cursed under his breath. Starfighters. Three squadrons of starfighters. The enemy ship was an escort carrier, then. And not a conventional design. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to disguise her true nature.
“Captain,” Alison said. “The enemy starfighters are deploying in attack formation.”
Ballsy, Stephen thought, feeling a flicker of wry admiration. Going on the offensive was about the only chance the enemy had, given just how badly Invincible outclassed their ship, but it still required nerve. I wonder if they thought to load their starfighters with torpedoes?
He pushed the thought to one side. “Launch the remaining starfighters,” he ordered, “and then bring the point defence online.”
“Aye, sir.”
“The dropships are moving aside,” Newcomb added. “Their CO is suggesting a forced-boarding.”
Stephen shook his head. The Royal Marines had unlimited confidence in themselves - and he’d seen them in action enough to know that their confidence was justified - but he couldn't authorise a suicide mission. And it would be suicide. An escort carrier normally didn't have much in the way of point defence - it wasn't as if their hulls were designed to stand up to plasma fire or nuclear-tipped torpedoes - but he had a feeling that this escort carrier was cannoned to the gunwales. Whoever had designed her was a devious bastard. His sensor crews and tactical analysts had been completely fooled.
Something to analyse thoroughly later, he thought, as the enemy starfighters rocketed towards Invincible. Right now, we have other concerns.
“Charlie Squadron is out,” Arthur reported. “Delta Squadron is launching now.”
“The CSP is moving to intercept,” Newcomb added. “Point defence is standing by.”
Stephen braced himself as the enemy starfighters blew through the first squadron and continued their mad rush towards Invincible. A handful of starfighters on both sides greyed out, indicating that they’d been hit ... the losses were bad, but better than he’d feared. The enemy might have enjoyed a slight numerical advantage, yet they were too smart to be lured into a dogfight. Crippling or destroying Invincible was their only hope.
“Enemy starfighters are entering point defence range,” Newcomb reported. “Guns are engaging ... now.”
And they’re smart enough to keep moving randomly, Stephen thought. It wasn't a surprise, not after the horrific losses during the early stages of the First Interstellar War, but it was still annoying. We’re not hitting many of them.
“Incoming torpedoes,” Alison snapped. “They’re targeting our drives!”
“Switch point defence to concentrate on them,” Stephen snapped. The enemy didn't seem to want to destroy Invincible, but they were sure as hell trying to cripple her. And the Royal Navy really didn't need the embarrassment of a multi-billion pound assault carrier being crippled by a ship that had probably been pulled out of a junkyard. “And order Alpha to target the enemy carrier.”
“Aye, sir!”
Stephen gritted his teeth as the torpedoes rushed towards his ship. They flew straight-line courses, which were easy to track, but their penetrator warheads made it harder to get a solid lock on them. Sensor ghosts and shadows bedevilled his sensors, forcing him to expend thousands of plasma bolts on a single target. He was lucky, he supposed, that the enemy hadn't deployed many starfighters. A full barrage of torpedoes would have done serious damage.
And they would have practically been guaranteed to score a handful of hits, he thought, grimly. The drive section is heavily armoured, but a couple of nukes could really mess us up.
Red lights flared up on the status display. “Direct hit, lower drive node,” Newcomb reported, sharply. “Damage control teams are on their way!”
“Order Charlie and Delta to join the attack on the enemy carrier,” Stephen snapped. It was hard to keep his irritation under control. They’d been luckier than they deserved and he knew it. “Damage assessment?”
“The node is powering down now,” Newcomb said. “But we can still make full speed.”
Stephen allowed himself a sigh of relief. It wasn't good, but at least they were still alive and fighting. Invincible wasn't one of the fragile carriers that had been slaughtered during the Battle of New Russia. Her armour could absorb more damage than the legendary Ark Royal, while her drives could propel her forward at speeds that would have stunned Theodore Smith and his officers. Invincible couldn't go toe-to-toe with a battleship, or a dreadnaught, but she could outrun anything strong enough to tear her apart.
“We’ll have to reassess the point defence programs,” he said. The point defence systems hadn't done badly, but they could have done a great deal better. “And allow more room for random firing.”
He shook his head in frustration. The boffins kept promising, but so far no one had been able to produce a piece of predictor software that actually did what it was supposed to do, at least when facing human opponents. There was just too much room for random decisions to interfere with the software’s targeting matrix. The only real way to defend a starship against enemy starfighters was to fill space with plasma bolts and hope for the best. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do.
“The enemy ship is engaging our starfighters,” Arthur reported. “She’s carrying quite a lot of point defence.”
“Communications, repeat the surrender demand,” Stephen ordered. The enemy CO had played his sole card and lost. It wasn't as if his crew were going to be executed the moment they surrendered. Nor, for that matter, were they being taken into captivity by aliens who might not have the slightest idea how to look after human prisoners. “And this time wide-band it.”
“Aye, sir.”
There was a long pause as the starfighters closed in on the enemy ship. Stephen braced himself, silently resolving not to attempt to force-board the escort carrier. There was too great a chance of the enemy CO simply waiting for the marines to dock, then hitting the self-destruct. It would break the laws of war, but no one had paid much attention to them since 2025. Even Theodore Smith had been unable to impose real change before his final desperate battle.
And aliens often have different ideas of what is acceptable in wartime, Stephen reminded himself. The Tadpoles had fought under one set of rules, the Foxes and Cows had fought under another. Their technology might be comparable to humanity’s, but their mindsets were very different. They might embrace suicide attacks with a will.
“Picking up a signal from the enemy ship,” Morse reported. “Sir, they’re trying to surrender.”
Stephen allowed himself a moment of relief. “Order them to power
down - their starfighters too,” he ordered. “And then tell the marines they can board.”
“Aye, sir.”
Newcomb grinned. “Can I resurrect the dead pilots now?”
“We may as well,” Stephen said. The dropships had docked, allowing the marines to swarm the enemy ship. “Send the ENDEX signal.”
“Aye, sir,” Newcomb said.
Stephen leaned back in his chair as the ‘dead’ starfighters came back to life. The exercise had been relatively simple, but unscripted. There had been room - plenty of room - for surprises, and embarrassments. And there had been too many watching eyes in the system. An exercise designed to show the locals that the Royal Navy still had teeth - and a willingness to bite - could easily have ended badly.
“Contact the enemy ship,” he ordered. “Invite Captain Crowe to dine with me before they return to Sol.”
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