Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch

by Christopher Nuttal

  “I think there’s no shortage of books or movies exploring that issue,” Ted said, after a moment. He’d watched quite a few movies about interstellar rebellions while he was a child, most of which – he knew now – were only worth watching for the actresses. Having a pretty girl lying on top of a tank while wearing nothing more than earrings made up for a lot. “But I don’t see humanity uniting any time soon.”

  Bellerose smiled. “We’re not very good at that, are we?”

  Ted shook his head. It was ironic, he knew, that most of the interstellar powers hadn't trusted each other with mass drivers. If they had, the Battle of New Russia might not have been such a curbstomp. Now, of course, everyone and his grandmother was trying to build mass drivers and use them to defend Earth against the aliens. Afterwards ... somehow, he doubted those weapons would go away.

  “But we’re working on it,” he said. He caught sight of a pair of commanding officers who seemed to be getting closer to one another than he would have expected. “We’re working on it.”

  He let Bellerose go to chat to one of the Americans, while he made his way over to the Chinese officer. Captain Wang Lei looked about as uncomfortable as Ted felt, standing in one corner of the room and holding a glass of clear water as though it was a weapon. Ted smiled at him and received a nod in return, then leaned against the bulkhead tiredly, trying to decide how best to open the discussion. Of all of the officers assigned to the task force, he knew least about Wang Lei. The Chinese Government hadn't been very forthcoming about any of its officers.

  “Your crews did well in the last exercise,” he said, figuring it was as good a way as any to start. “You saved two carriers from certain destruction.”

  “At the cost of four of our ships,” Wang Lei said. His voice was flat, utterly emotionless. “I don’t count that a victory.”

  Ted had to admit he agreed. Standard tactical doctrine insisted that frigates, which could be built in vast numbers relatively quickly, were expendable, certainly when compared to the expensive carriers. Indeed, given the existence of mass drivers, tacticians had been questioning the viability of carriers long before the aliens had arrived to hammer the point home. But frigates couldn't handle every mission themselves, while starfighters simply couldn't operate far from their bases. The carriers were both desperately needed and white elephants.

  “But you did well,” he said, softly. “If you do as well as that when the time comes to fight, I will be pleased.”

  Wang Lei, for the first time, showed a hint of emotion. “The government will disagree,” he said. “Losing ships in combat is not considered a good thing.”

  Ted winced. The Chinese Government was completely impenetrable to outsiders – the précis he’d read hadn't been able to decide if it was a dictatorship, a single-party state or a semi-democracy – but it definitely had one thing in common with the British Government. Losing a starship, no matter the situation, was something that had to be investigated thoroughly, just to make sure the commanding officer wasn't at fault. He'd answered quite enough questions about the lost frigates during their last mission to know that such an experience could be unendurable.

  “Losing the whole fleet would be worse,” Ted said. “But governments can be very unreasonable at times.”

  The thought made him roll his eyes. He hadn't been involved in the negotiations, but he’d heard there had been some real disagreements over the rules of engagement as well as the fleet’s command structure. If the Royal Navy had been bigger – much bigger – it would have been very tempting to insist that only British ships were dispatched to attack the aliens. But then, he understood the other problem too. Losing ships was bad enough, but losing them under someone else’s command was worse. No wonder the Chinese had been reluctant to commit a carrier to the fleet.

  “They can,” the Chinese officer agreed. He smiled, suddenly. “But what do you think of the war?”

  Ted hesitated, then did his best to answer. “I think we have to win, or at least force them to talk to us,” he said. “They certainly should be able to talk to us.”

  Wang Lei shrugged. “I once had to spend time in Bahrain as part of a liaison mission,” he said. “They were dependent on us for their protection, yet their treatment of us seemed unaccountably rude until we realised that they were honouring their customs, rather than our own. Holding long dinners, never raising serious topics, seeking consensus on how best to proceed ... it was how they acted, rather than us. Sometimes they lied to our faces because they wanted to save their own face.”

  He smiled, rather dryly. “Perhaps, for all we know, the aliens need to be hammered before they will talk to us.”

  “Perhaps,” Ted agreed.

  Wang Lei nodded towards the Japanese officer. “In both of the wars between Japan and America, the Japanese had to have their faces ground in their defeat before they surrendered,” he said. “They had to have their defeat made very clear to them. The aliens might be the same.”

  It sounded possible, Ted had to admit. But, at the same time, how could a race reach interstellar space with an attitude that made it impossible to accept defeat until it was pushed right to the brink of extinction? Japan’s casualties towards the end of the Second World War, both civilian and military, had been horrific, utterly beyond his comprehension. If the Americans had had to invade, as well as dropping additional nukes and perhaps even bioweapons, the survival of the Japanese as a people would have been in doubt. Their entire culture would have been destroyed beyond repair.

  The Chinese officer leaned forward. “Humanity has several different ways of looking at warfare,” he added. “For all we know, a starship commanded by a rogue officer fired on an alien ship and started the war.”

  “Babylon 5,” Ted recognised. British intelligence officers had dug through countless novels, movies and television programs, looking for ideas. Some of them had even proved workable in real life. “Or perhaps it was Doctor Who.”

  “It doesn't matter,” Wang Lei said. “The aliens might well be so completely alien that we cannot understand why they’re so angry at us. In that case, all we can do is fight until the threat has been destroyed. And everything else simply doesn't matter.”

  “I know,” Ted said.

  He nodded politely to Wang Lei, then stepped away from him, feeling an odd moment of pity as another Chinese officer made a beeline towards Wang Lei. The woman was pretty enough, in an odd kind of way, but it was clear she was his supervisor, even though she was formally his subordinate. A political commissioner ... Ted shook his head, tiredly. Even during the worst of the troubles, when the very survival of Britain had been called into question, there had never been any political commissioners. But the Chinese had kept the very old custom.

  How, he asked himself, can anyone command when someone else is looking over his shoulder?

  He could see, he supposed, the need to keep an eye on the officer’s political leanings. But how could they trust an untrained officer with the authority to override the Captain’s decision at the worst possible time? It was madness!

  “Admiral,” Captain Fitzwilliam said. “I trust you are enjoying the party?”

  Ted glowered at him. Fitzwilliam seemed to be handling himself perfectly, chatting to everyone and trying to make sure that no one was left out. It was part and parcel of growing up as an aristocrat ... he sighed, then shook his head, wishing for a drink. He wasn't cut out to be a sociable commander.

  “I wonder if it’s too late to rule by fear,” he muttered, just loudly enough for Fitzwilliam to hear. “I am no good at these events.”

  Fitzwilliam nodded. Ted eyed him, sharply.

  “My brother was just the same once,” he said. “Mother used to make him go anyway, just to force him to get over it. And it worked. Besides, it’s just another form of combat.”

  “Without the danger of getting blown up,” Ted said. “I could really get to dislike it.”

  “Diplomacy,” Fitzwilliam said. “It's important to make oth
ers feel appreciated.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Admiral,” Lopez said. “War Hog is ready to make transit.”

  Ted nodded. The tramline that led towards the target system was dead ahead of them, seemingly unobserved. He had his doubts, but there was no evidence to suggest they’d been detected, merely an edgy feeling at the back of his mind. And that could easily have been the remains of his irritation at the party.

  “Order her to jump as soon as possible,” he ordered, sitting back in his command chair. The odds were still strikingly against them having been detected. “And then to follow standard procedure.”

  He watched, as emotionlessly as possible, as the starship vanished from the display and silently counted down the seconds until she re-emerged. This tramline should be compatible with standard human technology, he knew; the aliens would have no pressing reason not to keep an eye on it. But would they believe it to be out of humanity’s reach? There was no way to know for sure.

  It was nearly nine minutes before War Hog reappeared. “Priority signal, Admiral,” Lopez said. “They detected definite traces of alien settlements.”

  Ted sucked in his breath. He’d expected it, sooner or later, but it was still a shock. “Pass the data to the analysts, then share it with the other ships,” he ordered. “Was there any sign they were detected?”

  “Negative,” Lopez said. “The fleet’s requesting orders, sir.”

  “Order them to stand by,” Ted said. “We may need to rethink our approach.”

  He keyed his console, accessing the data from the frigate. At such a distance, there was relatively little, but there were definite signs of alien presence. One nexus of radio signals, coming from a planet well out of visual range; several others, including a handful that probably came from starships in transit. And, he noted, three tramlines, including the one he’d probed. The system might not be of supreme importance to the aliens – there was no gas giant for mining, unless it was on the other side of the star – but the tramlines alone would give the system value.

  “The planet's in the life-bearing zone,” one of the analysts offered. “The aliens might well have settled it.”

  “Almost certainly,” Ted agreed. Apart from small independent asteroid settlements, most humans preferred to live on planetary surfaces rather than starships or asteroids. If nothing else, a life support failure wouldn't mean immediate death. “But how heavily is it defended?”

  He shook his head. There was no way the question could be answered, not now. And they’d expected to run into an alien settlement or two along the way.

  “We will proceed through the tramline, then steer our way towards Tramline Two,” he ordered. “If possible, we will avoid all contact with alien ships.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lopez said. She paused. “Intelligence will want a look at that planet, assuming it is a habitable world.”

  “We can launch a spread of drones to observe the planet,” Ted said. It would be risky, but the odds against one of the drones being detected were staggeringly high. “And then have the information beamed back to us through a chain of remote platforms.”

  He leaned back in his chair, trying to project an air of calm competence.

  “Order the fleet to begin transit,” he added. “I want us all through the tramline without a single betraying emission.”

  ***

  It was odd, Kurt decided, how space could go from being warm and friendly to hostile in a split second. He felt ice crawling up and down his spine as soon as the carrier jumped through the tramline, appearing within a system ruled by humanity’s alien foes. Part of him wanted to forget stealth, climb into a cockpit himself and lead the charge towards the alien planet, the rest of him knew that was an incredibly bad idea. The alien world didn't seem to be that important, not in the great scheme of things. An attack would only alert the aliens that the fleet was on its way.

  He forced himself to relax, cursing his promotion under his breath. There was no real rise in salary – he’d been drawing a CAG’s pay ever since his assignment to Ark Royal – but he was isolated from the battle. If – when – his pilots were launched into combat, he would be left behind, watching helplessly as they faced the aliens for the very first time. The rooks wouldn't be completely unsupervised, but if the battle turned into a melee they'd be utterly dependent on their own skills. It was hard to coordinate a battle from the safety of the carrier.

  Not that the other CAGs feel that way, he thought. He’d been able to chat with them, although none of them had really wanted to leave their pilots completely unsupervised. They think their carriers are just sitting ducks.

  He took another look at the display, then tried to read one of the reports on his terminal that demanded his immediate attention. It was hard to concentrate, so he eventually closed the report and tried to focus on the display. A stream of updates was flowing into the system from the drones as they probed their way further into the system, but nothing had appeared that really demanded his attention. The alien world – and it was definitely settled by the aliens, judging by the observed ships in orbit – was largely undefended. It didn't look as though the aliens had bothered to establish a proper defence grid, let alone orbital battlestations or automated platforms.

  “We should be sweeping the place for clues,” he muttered to himself. He wanted, so desperately he could almost touch it, to be in a cockpit. To be somewhere, anywhere, else. “Or seeing what we might encounter along the way.”

  Bitterly, he put the thought out of his mind. All he could do was watch. And wait.

  ***

  Henry felt sweat trickling down his back as he sat in the cockpit, both praying for the signal to launch and the command to stand down. He’d stood watch before, ready to be hurled into space at the first sign of trouble, yet this was different. Outside, the aliens swarmed through the star system, perhaps already vaguely aware that they were not alone. His hands felt clammy as he rested them against his knees, so clammy that he couldn't help worrying about his hand slipping when he was launched into space. Cold icy fear ran through his mind as he waited.

  He’d never really been scared before, not ever. There had been no serious consequences in his life, such as it was; there had never been any real danger of death. Even his first time in a starfighter hadn't been terrifying, even though the starfighter had proved immensely tricky to handle. He'd never really been afraid, not like some of the other trainees, who had approached the craft with nervous eyes and terrified faces. There had never seemed any real danger ... and flying in space brought its own kind of freedom.

  But now ... he could die. Never mind the possible consequences of his death – it was hard to take them seriously when he was so powerless – or the effect it would have on his family, it was quite possible that the aliens could kill him. At least there would be no malice in it, he considered, or the naked hatred some commoners had shown towards the Royal Family, unaware that he would have gleefully swapped places with them any day. The aliens wouldn't want to kill him because he was Prince Henry. They’d just want to kill him for being human.

  Somehow, the thought made him feel better.

  It was odd, he considered, how apologising to North had made him feel better too. Perhaps it was because he knew he’d done something stupid, perhaps it was the certain knowledge that it was Charles Augustus rather than Prince Henry who was being punished, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that it hadn't been a forced apology for something he hadn't done or meant to do or someone easily offended had been offended by. And North had accepted it and that was the end of the whole affair.

  Not quite, he reminded himself. You still have to clean the decks.

  The thought made him smile. It was not a pleasant job – and the other pilots had been very droll when they’d explained why it wasn't a pleasant job – but it was something he deserved to have to do. Not that he could explain that to them, of course. They’d think he was insane and, perhaps, they’d be right. But it hardly mat
tered.

  Carefully, he relaxed back into his seat, bracing himself. If the call came, he would be ready.

  ***

  “That’s a curious settlement,” the Rhino observed. “Reminds me of an alien Venice.”

  Charles examined the live feed from the drones, thoughtfully. The detail was pathetic compared to images from satellites in low orbit, but enough had come through to allow them to study the alien city in some detail. It looked like it was half-submerged in water, with aliens swimming through the streets and canals; there were almost no structures on the planet’s land surface at all. The alien buildings were strange, to human eyes, yet there was something about them that seemed almost familiar. It took him a long moment to realise that he was looking at structures shaped like frozen water.

  “They may be reminding themselves of their origins,” the Rhino speculated. “Or the buildings may actually be ice.”

  Charles shrugged. The aliens looked ... very alien, but there was something remarkably human about the way they thronged through their city. Was he looking at alien soldiers, hastening to defensive positions, or civilians living their daily lives, without thought of war? On Earth, despite the war, life went on. Was it the same for the aliens?