Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch

by Christopher Nuttal

  There was a ragged chorus of assent. Kurt gazed over the pilots, noting how some of them seemed to have quailed under his speech and others looked resentful. The only one who looked almost happy was Charles Augustus. Indeed, the young man looked pleased. Kurt eyed him suspiciously – pilots were known for being great jokers and playing pranks on their superiors was a common trait during peacetime – then put the matter out of his mind. There was much else that needed to be said.

  “The older pilots amongst you also have experience, so they will be serving as subordinate commanders,” Kurt continued. “I suggest you learn from their experience too, because it is far easier to learn from someone else’s experience than learning it the hard way. I do not want to hear any quibbles about pilot equality, not now. Experience will serve as the basis of seniority.”

  He paused, significantly. In theory, Flight Lieutenants were equals, regardless of experience; in practice, he’d just thrown that convention out of the airlock. But there was no way he was going to abandon the chance to have more experienced pilots assist with the training, no matter their ranks. They needed all the help they could get.

  “You may have heard rumours about operational deployments,” Kurt concluded. He’d heard the rumours himself, although nothing had been officially confirmed. But it was pretty obvious that a task force consisting of six full-sized carriers wasn't going to be patrolling the rear of human space. “This is not a pleasure cruise. Any of you who act like you’re on a luxury liner to Jupiter will regret it.”

  He paused, again. “Which leads to one final point,” he added. “I assume you all brought your duffels?”

  The rooks raised their bags. Kurt smiled; Royal Navy regulations only allowed pilots one medium-sized bag, which had to carry their clothing as well as anything else they wished to bring with them. His training had included a session on how best to pack their bags, but the rooks had largely missed out on that piece of vital information. He'd bet good money that half of the rooks hadn't packed their spare uniforms, or stuffed the bags full of chocolate or pornographic materials. Or, rather more worryingly, drugs or electronic simulators. The latter two could get a pilot dishonourably discharged from the service, if he didn't manage to get himself killed first.

  “You should have been provided with a list of what you were expected to bring,” Kurt said, dryly. “If you haven’t brought any of it, you can obtain the missing items from the supply officer – but I’m afraid the costs will be coming out of your salary, as the items in question were supplied by the Royal Navy. I suggest you do that today, as we will be inspecting your possessions tomorrow. Which” – he paused, drawing the moment out as long as possible – “leads to the next point.

  “There are items that are firmly on the banned list,” he warned. “You have until the end of today to get rid of them, no questions asked. The list itself is on the datanet. If you are caught with any of them afterwards, you will be fined, docked in rank – which is a little pointless at the moment – assigned to punishment duties or the brig ... or dishonourably discharged from the navy. You’ve all done very well to reach so far so quickly. It would be a crying shame if you lost it right now.”

  He smiled at their expressions. Whatever happened in Sin City stayed in Sin City – that much was well-known – but it was quite possible to buy items that were legally banned just about everywhere else in the lunar settlement. Pornography wasn't technically banned, but drugs, simulators and other devices were forbidden. But pilots, always seeking thrills, had probably decided to risk their careers to buy something they shouldn’t. He just hoped they had the sense to get rid of anything incriminating before the inspections began. Someone stupid enough not to do so was probably addicted already.

  “That’s the end of my speech,” he said. “Wing Commander Labara?”

  Rose stepped forward. “When I call your name,” she said, “assemble behind me.”

  She ran through eleven names, three of them belonging to experienced pilots. The rooks, some of them looking noticeably paler than they’d looked when they’d boarded the ship, followed orders, then followed her out of the compartment. Charles Augustus still showed no sign of anything, but pleasure. Kurt narrowed his eyes, watched them go – they hadn't learned to march in step, clearly – and then turned back as the other Wing Commanders went through the lists. Finally, all of the pilots were assigned to a specific squadron and on their way to the barracks. After the Academy, they’d probably find the barracks something of an improvement.

  He made his way back to his office and started to work his way through the reports, waiting to see who would call him first. Brief updates started to blink up on his terminal within moments, informing him that several rooks had forgotten various important items and would have to order them from the supply officer. Kurt rolled his eyes when he saw that, as always, they’d forgotten pieces of their uniforms or even their underwear. How the hell did someone manage to forget navy-issue underpants or bras?

  You were that young too, once, he reminded himself. He’d forgotten his uniform jacket, which had cost him a large chunk of his salary. And you had the full six months of intensive training.

  Putting the thought aside, he pulled up the planned training schedules and cast his eye down them. There would be a couple of days for his squadrons to get used to their new starfighters, then they would start training with American, Japanese and French pilots. It would be interesting, to say the least. No matter what the Admiral might have said about working together, national rivalry would play a major role in the coming mock battles.

  But they won’t be mock when we meet the aliens, he told himself, sharply. By then, we have to learn to work together or die together.

  Chapter Nine

  Major Charles Parnell couldn't help but be impressed by USS Chesty Puller. Like most military warships she was as ugly as hell, yet that hardly mattered. She was designed to take thousands of American Marines into the teeth of enemy fire, land them on hostile ground and provide fire support to them until the enemy were firmly suppressed. Indeed, she made the transport ships used by the Royal Marines look tiny, although Charles wasn't entirely sure she was a great idea. Her armour might be heavier than the armour protecting modern carriers, but it was nowhere near as heavy as Ark Royal’s.

  “Welcome to my ship,” Major General Ross called. “It's been a long time.”

  Charles smiled and shook hands firmly with the Rhino. They’d met years ago, back during a joint operation in the Horn of Africa, yet another butcher and bolt. The Rhino had impressed him, once he’d overcome the bombast and realised there was a fine mind hidden under the heavyset expression. And he’d been quite happy to forget nationalism and work with others to hunt down terrorists, kidnappers and wreckers.

  “It has indeed,” he said. “And now they’re sending you to war against aliens.”

  “Hell of a thing,” the Rhino agreed. “None of us ever really planned for it.”

  He waved a hand, indicating the colossal landing bay. Countless Marines and support staff moved from shuttle to shuttle, inspecting their loads or checking their drives. Others ran in circles around the bay, getting what exercise they could. Charles couldn’t help the flicker of envy – a ship dedicated to the Royal Marines would have been very helpful – but he still had his doubts about the concept.

  “But you can see we’ve been adapting,” the Rhino boomed. “You see Mons Meg over there?”

  Charles followed his gaze. A large weapon – it looked big enough to be a self-propelled gun – was mounted on tracks. As he watched, a handful of Marines carefully manoeuvred it into a shuttle, taking extreme care.

  “It looks as though they expect the weapon to blow up at any moment,” he said.

  “They do,” the Rhino said. “That’s one of the first strategic plasma cannons designed and produced for the Corps. It's actually capable of engaging targets in low orbit from the ground, which should make life interesting for anyone trying to land on the planet. But t
he plasma containment field is very far from perfect.”

  Charles snorted. “I bet the health and safety lot loved it!”

  “Oh, they did,” the Rhino sneered. “They actually wanted to forbid its deployment to the Corps until we actually managed to improve the containment system. But they were overruled, because there’s a war underway and we need every advantage we can get. We’ve also got plasma cannons for deployment to replace antitank missiles and HVMs, but nothing man-portable just yet. We don't know how the aliens do it.”

  Charles nodded, remembering the alien weapons they’d captured from Alien-1 and the battlecruiser. They’d shot bursts of superheated plasma, enough to ensure a kill even if they only brushed their human targets. But humanity couldn't duplicate the handheld weapons, not yet. It made him wonder just what else the aliens might have up their sleeves, if their technology was so much more advanced. Humanity was catching up, but would it catch up in time?

  The Rhino snorted, again. “In any case, I will be leading the assault down to the ground, assuming there actually is an assault,” he said. “Once we take the ground, we will set up defences and wait for the aliens to come to us. We’ll give them quite a few nasty surprises when they do. If the fleet has to leave, we can still hold the planet.”

  “They’ll just fry you from orbit,” Charles protested. Standard doctrine insisted that whoever ruled the high orbitals ruled the planet. It was certainly true that wrecker bases in the failed states in Africa and the Middle East were obliterated without warning, either by American or European military forces. “You’ll lose everyone.”

  “Hardly,” the Rhino said. He nodded towards a handful of other plasma cannons. “We should be able to hold out for a time.”

  He shrugged, mightily. “It all depends on the exact situation, of course,” he added. “At worst, we’ll merely loot their settlements and then fall back.”

  Charles nodded. They’d been briefed extensively on the importance of recovering alien books as well as computers, something that might help the scientists unlock the secrets behind how the aliens communicated. The alien computers might have yielded some data, but nothing that would allow humans to actually talk to them. He’d been told that if they recovered something that served as a key to unlock the alien language there would be promotions all around. The scientists had to be getting desperate.

  Maybe they think the aliens are just misunderstood, he thought. And they want to prove it before it’s too late.

  “Their settlements may well be underwater,” Charles said. The aliens on Alien-1 had certainly been based underwater – and it was clear the aliens didn't need to surface to breathe. “Can you handle that?”

  “We have over two thousand armoured Marines,” the Rhino assured him. “We can certainly probe into their underwater domains, even if we can’t hold them permanently. But I’m rather hoping there will be a large underwater population.”

  Charles blinked. “You are?”

  “There might well be civilians there too,” the Rhino said. “Perhaps they can actually talk to us.”

  “Maybe,” Charles said. The aliens they’d captured might have been military personnel – or they might have been civilian scientists. Without any way to actually talk to them it was impossible to tell. “But we should be very careful. So far, the aliens have largely refrained from atrocities.”

  “True,” the Rhino said. He looked pensive for a long moment. “What does it say about us, Charles, when a bunch of aliens are more honourable foes than half of humanity?”

  “They’re pragmatic,” Charles said. “They go after our worlds, we go after their worlds and both races lose billions of people. But if they win the war, they can commit genocide afterwards at leisure – or simply keep us trapped on the ground. Maybe they just don’t want us expanding any further, so they started the war.”

  The Rhino shrugged and slapped him on the back. “It doesn’t matter why they started the war,” he said. “All that matters is winning it.”

  He paused, then produced a sheet of paper from his belt. “Now, training schedules,” he said, briskly. “The Russians and Chinese have sent ground forces, as have the French. You’ll be taking part in the briefings, I assume?”

  Charles nodded. As one of the few officers to actually set foot on an alien world, his insights would be invaluable. But they’d never seen a major alien world. The intelligence officers had warred over the question of just how many defences the aliens would construct around a world they had to defend. Would they have major ground-based plasma cannons, capable of engaging ships in orbit, or would they prefer to station weapons in orbit? There were strong cases for both arguments and everywhere in between.

  “It will be my pleasure,” Charles said. He was looking forward to working with the Rhino again, even though he’d never met the other commanding officers. “Shall we go?”

  ***

  “So you forgot your uniform trousers and one of your bras,” Kurt said. The rook – a pilot who reminded him uncomfortably of Penny – flushed bright red. “You’ll be pleased to know that the supply officer can and will provide, but your salary is deducted one hundred pounds to pay for it.”

  The pilot winced as the other rooks sniggered. Kurt felt a flicker of sympathy which he ruthlessly suppressed. Attention to detail was important in flying – a pilot who forgot her uniform one day might forget to check her weapons and flying systems before launch the next. One hundred pounds was steep – the Royal Navy had a very good deal with its suppliers – but it would teach her a lesson. Besides, the remainder would be poured into the squadron R&R fund.

  He turned his attention to the next pilot, who’d been snickering uncontrollably. “Perhaps you would like to explain, rook, precisely why you failed to pack both of your shirts?”

  The rook stopped laughing. “I ...”

  “Let me guess,” Kurt said, cutting him off. “You thought you could avoid wearing a shirt and pack something else instead?”

  He sighed. The excuse had been popular during his training and probably dated far further back than the human race had been flying in space. But it was still stupid.

  “You’ll be charged seventy-five pounds,” Kurt informed him, sternly. “And what did you pack in their place?”

  “Nothing,” the rook said. “I ...”

  Kurt glowered at him, then allowed his voice to become mocking. “You didn't even manage to smuggle a naughty outfit onboard?”

  He moved onto Charles Augustus, who was standing beside his bunk, and checked the terminal. Augustus didn't seem to have reported anything to the supply officer, which suggested he’d actually managed to pack his bag properly or he’d tried to avoid reporting anything missing in the hopes it would be missed in the inspection. Kurt motioned for the young man to open his bag, then checked everything against the master list. Nothing seemed to be missing, nor was there anything illicit. It was suspiciously perfect.

  “You seem to have managed to pack,” Kurt growled. “And how did you do it without being taught?”

  “I asked one of the older pilots,” Augustus said. He held Kurt’s eyes without flinching, which was interesting. No matter how confident pilots were, rooks rarely stood up to their superiors. “He taught me how to do it, then warned me to be careful I didn't miss anything.”

  “Good for him,” Kurt said.

  He moved on to the next pilot, then the next. Three more were missing essential items, two of them had brought other items of clothing with them, despite being told it was against regulations. He could see the impulse to bring sexy underwear, even though relations between pilots in the same squadrons were strictly forbidden, but what sort of idiot would feel that a complete set of civilian clothes were suitable? They were hardly going to attend a coming-out ball in the heart of London.

  “Well,” he said, when the inspection was finally finished. “This doesn't bode well for the future, does it?”

  He allowed himself to glare at the pilots who’d had to request items
from the supply officer, then sighed out loud. “You need to learn to pay close attention to detail,” he said. “I suggest, very strongly, that you learn.”

  Turning, he marched out of the compartment, leaving Wing Commander Paton to lecture the pilots who'd slipped up, badly. Outside, he met Rose and Commander Amelia Williams, who nodded shortly to him. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the XO, but she seemed competent and didn't seem inclined to mess around with his responsibilities. That alone was enough to endear her to him.

  “We found only a small amount of illicit goods,” Amelia said. “Either they didn't have the opportunity to find much at Sin City or they had more sense than we expected.”