Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch

by Christopher Nuttal

  He sighed, again. They were close enough to Earth to hold a conversation, if Molly had wanted to talk to him. He hesitated, then started to tap in her contact code before stopping himself. The last thing he wanted was another shouting match, not now. But what the hell was she thinking?

  You wanted to make sure your kids had the best possible schooling, he thought, coldly. It wasn't as if he’d disagreed with Molly’s ambitions for her children. But, by doing so, you brought her into contact with people who could spend money like water and never miss it.

  He cancelled the call, tiredly. He’d never really felt poor, but then he'd had a good job, beautiful kids and a nice house. He didn't need fancy clothes, luxury food or long holidays somewhere it was always sunny. But Molly clearly felt otherwise; she’d wanted luxury, even though she’d known she could never have it. Until she could ...

  Or was she simply separated from me a long time ago? The thought was a bitter one, but it had to be faced. Starfighter pilots rarely married while on active service, like most junior crewmen. Molly had never had to deal with a long enforced separation. Had she discovered, when he'd been called back to war, that she needed someone in her life? Or was his paranoia simply getting the better of him.

  “Record V-Mail,” he ordered. There was a chirp from the console as the camera activated, recording the message. “Molly.

  “I don’t want to rehash our argument,” he said, carefully. It was funny how he could always find the right words to chew out a pilot, but not to talk to his wife. “But we do need to think about the future. If you have found someone else, I don’t mind; we’re both old enough, I think, to handle a separation. I ...”

  He hesitated, again. Should he mention Rose?

  “I won’t stand in your way if you want a separation,” he said, deciding it would be better not to give Molly more ammunition. “But I do worry about the children. We agreed to raise them together, to bring them up until they became adults, and we must honour that agreement, no matter what we feel about each other. I know, most of the burden in the past year has fallen on you. But I still care deeply about them ... and about you.”

  But it was a lie, he knew. He knew he should care about Molly, but there was nothing in his heart apart from a cold dead emptiness. They’d been lovers, they’d built a family together, yet the combination of his absences and the prize money had ripped them apart and forced her into the arms of another man. Or was he still being paranoid? Just because he was having an affair didn't mean that his wife was also having an affair ...

  “We need to be honest with each other,” he said, slowly. But he wasn't being honest, was he? “When I return to the solar system, we will sit down somewhere neutral and talk, openly, about the future. I will make arrangements for you to have some of my salary, to help take care of the kids – and even to take care of yourself. All I ask in return is that we talk openly and that we don’t hurt the kids.”

  But how could it not hurt the kids? Both Penny and Percy were teenagers, never the most stable of people. They’d both wonder, even if they didn't admit it, if they were responsible for separating their parents. Maybe Molly, as angry as she’d been with him, had already blamed everything on her husband. Or maybe Gayle had tried to explain parental rows and separations and the kids had picked up completely the wrong idea. Or ...

  “Take care of them,” he concluded. “And take care of yourself, too. I ...”

  He wanted to say he loved her. But the words wouldn't form on his tongue.

  “I’ll see you when I get back,” he said. “Goodbye.”

  He ended the recording, reviewed it, then transmitted the message to Earth, where it would enter the planetary datanet. Once it was gone, he recorded messages for both Percy and Penny, telling them to behave and reassuring them that it wasn't their fault. After a moment, he recorded a message for Gayle too, asking her to keep looking after the kids. Molly was likely to become unbearable for a while – Kurt remembered her raging when she’d been pregnant for the first time – and Gayle, unlike the kids, could simply leave. It would be hard to blame her too.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

  But there was no way he could change the past, not now. All he could do was try to steer his way through the coming storm ... and keep his children safe. That was all that mattered.

  ***

  “All systems report ready, sir,” the helmsman said.

  “Thank you,” James said. He stood on the bridge, looking up at the display. “Take us out.”

  Ark Royal quivered slightly as her main drives activated, pushing her forward through the inky darkness of space. James sat down in his command chair and kept an eye on the status display as the starship picked up speed, struggling to keep up with the other five carriers. As large as they were, their lack of armour give them a higher rate of acceleration than Ark Royal could hope to match. But then, the older carrier might move like a wallowing pig, but she could survive blows that would rip the newer carriers apart.

  “All systems are working within acceptable parameters,” Alan Anderson said. “I’m surprised.”

  “I’m not,” James said. Anderson was hardly a conventional engineer, but there was no one more innovative than him in any space navy. He’d actually managed to splice an alien drive system into humanity’s control systems and get it to work properly. After that, ensuring that human-designed components worked together was child’s play. “You’re brilliant.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Anderson said. “Should I get on with installing the chocolate shower in your quarters now?”

  James smirked. Beside him, Commander Williams looked shocked. She wasn't used to Anderson’s brand of humour yet. James had taken some time to get used to it himself.

  “Actually, I’d like a Jacuzzi with chocolate pudding,” he said. “And maybe a large waterbed.”

  He chuckled, then sat back in his command chair. “Keep an eye on the fusion cores,” he said, after a moment. “I don’t want them deciding to have problems while we’re so far from Earth.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Jump,” Fitzwilliam ordered.

  Ted braced himself as Ark Royal’s Puller Drive activated, jumping her down the gravity tramline to Terra Nova. There was a faint feeling of unease, then a shock that was beyond description, then nothing at all. But, on the display, the stars had changed. They had hopped 10.5 light years in a split second.

  “Launch probes,” he ordered. Terra Nova was supposed to be safe, but the divided world was on the direct route to New Russia. The aliens would be fools if they didn't have the system under covert observation. “I want to know if there is anything nearby.”

  The seconds ticked away as the remaining ships in the fleet came through, one by one, their sensors and weapons already active. Ted doubted the aliens had managed to get a battlefleet alarmingly close to Earth without being detected, but he had no intention of skimping on tactical precautions. If nothing else, skimping on precautions was a dangerous habit when the universe was suddenly a great deal less safe than it had been a year ago. But then, it was quite clear that the aliens had spent years observing humanity. They’d certainly tailored their attack fleets to match and overwhelm humanity’s active duty ships.

  Good thing they didn't take you seriously, old girl, he thought, rubbing the command chair affectionately. Or they would have taken us out too.

  “Space appears to be clear,” the sensor officer said, finally. “No traces of any active starships or spacecraft until the asteroid belt, sir.”

  Ted nodded, although he knew not to take that for granted. A single starship, it’s drives and sensors stepped down to the bare minimum, would be almost completely undetectable. The aliens could have a ship within a few thousand kilometres of the human fleet, if they were prepared to take the risk of being detected by a radar sweep. But the odds against detection were still staggeringly high, while the radar sweep would be picked up by passive sensors right across the star system.
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  “Probably smugglers or illicit miners,” Lopez said. She sounded more than a little amused at the concept, which made sense. Her grandfather had grown up on such a colony. “The system still hasn't managed to sort out mining rights.”

  Ted nodded. The star systems held by the major powers belonged to them, at least once they had assembled the firepower to enforce their claims if necessary. But Terra Nova, a perpetually divided world, had no unified defence force, let alone an authority that could speak for the entire planet. There was nothing to stop miners from poking through the asteroid belt for anything interesting, or squatters to set up their own colonies far from the planet’s atmosphere. But, compared to the growing industry of Sol, Washington or Britannia, the asteroid belt was almost completely undeveloped. Terra Nova, close enough to Earth to take in hundreds of thousands of prospective settlers, was fast becoming a galactic backwater.

  “Send our IFF to the blocking force,” he said. A handful of frigates, mainly from the smaller powers, had been stationed in the system to watch for any large-scale alien intrusion. “And copy it to the planet. We may as well try to avoid a diplomatic incident.”

  He settled back in his command chair and reviewed the reports. All ships had jumped safely, he noted, without any major problems. Good ... but the real test would come when they tried using the alien-derived systems. Fortunately, Terra Nova had a tramline that would suffice for their first experiment. And, with so little development in the system outside the planet itself, there was no real chance of being observed as they tested the tramline.

  “Picking up a response from the blocking force,” Lopez said, after seventeen minutes had ticked by. “They wish us luck.”

  “Good,” Ted said. He finished looking through the reports, then turned his attention back to the display. “Take us towards the preset coordinates.”

  He watched, grimly, as the fleet settled into motion, the frigates fanning out ahead as they searched for prospective targets. If there was an alien scout watching them, Ted suspected the enemy CO would try to sneak close to the fleet, just to get some hard readings on ship numbers and capabilities. The frigates would try to discourage such tricks, although Ted had few illusions about their long-term effectiveness. Given a sufficiently careful commander – if the enemy had commanding officers as humanity used the term – they could probably get close without being detected.

  “We just picked up several separate signals from the planet in quick succession,” Lopez reported, breaking into his thoughts. “Two of them invite you and your staff to dinner, three more demand payment for using the tramline and one orders us to turn back and leave the system.”

  Ted rolled his eyes. Terra Nova simply didn't have the firepower to enforce its claim to the tramlines, nor could it force the fleet to retreat. Besides, if they had tried, it would have drawn the ire of all major spacefaring powers. Terra Nova was not in any position to be allowed to block access to its tramlines, not when three major worlds needed access to remain in touch with Earth.

  That might change, he thought. If the alien drive is duplicated in large quantities, we would no longer be so dependent on tramlines we thought fixed.

  He smiled at the thought, remembering some of the delighted raving from military and civilian scientists who’d studied the alien drive. They’d told him that the aliens were geniuses for understanding the implications of tramlines ... and yet, that their technology didn’t seem to go far enough. Indeed, given enough time, they might even be able to produce tramlines on demand. Ted suspected that it would be years before it became possible, but if it did ... it would revolutionise interstellar transport.

  Lopez cleared her throat. “Will there be a response?”

  “No,” Ted said. It wasn't Royal Navy policy to respond to absurd demands. Besides, he had a feeling it was just posturing and nothing else. Terra Nova’s various governments would have to be insane to start a conflict with the rest of humanity in the middle of an interstellar war. “Just log their transmissions in the ship’s log.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lopez said. She paused. “The CAG is requesting permission to continue training exercises.”

  Ted hesitated. He would have preferred to keep his starfighters ready to launch, just in case the aliens did show up, rather than recall training flights and rearming them under fire. The aliens might not realise that the human starfighters weren't armed with live weapons, but they’d certainly take advantage of it once they realised the truth.

  But they did need to keep exercising the starfighter squadrons. And there was no substitute for actual flight experience.

  “One squadron only,” he said, finally. “The remainder are to stay at combat readiness.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lopez said.

  “And contact the other carriers,” Ted added. “If they want to launch a squadron of their own for exercises, we will be happy to accommodate them.”

  ***

  “Ten dollars says the Black Knights kick ass once again,” the Rhino said, from where he was standing next to the display. “Overpaid pretty-boys they might be, but they know their stuff.”

  “Pity they’re not going up against the Few,” Charles countered, tightly. The Rhino had been quietly ragging on the Royal Navy’s pilots since the first humiliating defeat. But then, the new pilots were trainees and the Black Knights were an experienced squadron. It would have been more worrying if the trainees had won their first battle. “Or one of the squadrons we had before we returned to Earth.”

  The Rhino shrugged. “We were all young once,” he said. “I trust you’ve had a chance to examine the deployment plan?”

  Charles smiled. Calling it a deployment plan was an exaggeration; there were simply too many variables for true planning. The Rhino’s plan was, at best, a handful of half-formed objectives. But then, the various ground forces committed to Operation Nelson were trained to adapt and overcome unexpected surprises. They’d give the aliens a very hard time indeed, if it came down to fighting on the ground.

  “It’s chancy,” he said, “but it should work as long as the politicians don’t get their hands on it.”

  The Rhino smirked. “Or the fleet officers?”

  “Admiral Smith never questioned my plans,” Charles said. “But, to be fair, we didn't have a major deployment of ground troops, just a couple of hundred Royal Marines.”

  He looked down at the deployment plan and sighed, inwardly. Jumping into an unknown situation was always dangerous, all the more so when the enemy was alien, had responses that didn't seem quite human and possessed advanced technology. But there was no way to gather much information in advance. The Rhino intended to shoot stealthed probes ahead of the fleet, yet they knew the limitations on the systems. It was quite possible that they’d find out about the alien defences and combat force deployments when they crashed into the planet’s atmosphere.

  Or maybe they will just go underwater and assume we can't follow them, Charles thought. It might be the best thing they could do.

  He looked up at the Rhino. There were few occupations these days, not when punitive strikes were considered more effective than trying to rebuild a foreign country from scratch, but the Royal Marines had worked hard to keep their knowledge base up to date. It was hard occupying a country full of humans, yet he was sure it would be worse if they tried occupying an alien world. They couldn't even tell the aliens to behave themselves!

  “We should probably try to avoid alien cities as much as possible,” he said. “That’s what they did on New Russia.”

  “We still need to get our intelligence,” the Rhino replied. “There’s no way we can afford to avoid the alien cities.”

  Charles winced, but nodded. He knew the Rhino was right.

  ***

  “No ships within detection range,” the sensor officer reported. “I can't even pick up any illicit settlements.”

  “That would defeat the purpose of such settlements,” James said, dryly. He keyed his console, calling Anderson. “Enginee
ring?”

  “The modified system is online,” Anderson said. “But I can't vouch for it behaving itself indefinitely. The whole system is a jury-rigged kludge built by civilians.”

  “Understood,” James said. “I have every faith in you.”

  The thought made him glare down at the display. He’d objected, strongly, when he'd taken a careful look at the planned route towards enemy territory. There would be at least one star system that was completely inaccessible by human tramlines, ensuring that Ark Royal would be stranded if her jury-rigged systems failed. And, perhaps, the other ships too. But the Admiral had been adamant. The aliens wouldn't place so much importance on picketing a system they believed to be more inaccessible than Alien-1, where Ark Royal had visited on her previous cruise. James couldn't argue with the logic, he knew, but being so isolated still worried him.