“No, it isn't,” Janelle said. “But you never know what else might be up there.”
She looked at him and smiled. Henry hesitated, then opened his mouth. “Would you ... would you like to catch a movie sometime?”
Janelle looked at him for a long moment. It dawned on Henry in a moment of complete and total mortification that he’d made a complete fool of himself. There were entertainment complexes on the ship, true, but most of them were for more than two people. The remainder were intended for more intimate activities than watching a movie. He cringed inwardly, praying silently for the deck to swallow him whole or for his heart to stop beating. He’d screwed up badly.
“I think I’d like that,” she said. “But it might have to wait until after we reach our destination.”
Henry almost sagged in relief. He knew what some of the cruder pilots would say – their advice on getting into female panties had been bragging, rather than anything practical – but he didn't just want to get into bed with her. He’d be lying if he told himself he wasn't attracted to her, yet she was clearly intelligent and capable. She could be much more than just another fling, not that he'd been allowed many of them. Even his casual encounters while he’d been Prince Henry had been carefully planned. And many of the details had ended up in the media anyway.
“I understand,” he said. “I can wait.”
She smiled at him. “So can I,” she said. It took Henry a moment to realise he was being teased. “But maybe not for very long.”
Henry had to laugh. Being a prince made it hard to meet girls. He’d met girls who wanted to brag they’d slept with a prince, girls who were reluctant to even talk with him for fear the media would notice, girls who thought he had a reputation and refused to even look at him ... and he hadn't met many girls as Charles Augustus. The women at Sin City had wanted to strip him of his funds, not develop an intimate relationship. Some of the conversation from the older pilots, afterwards, had been very illuminating.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it.
Janelle gave him an odd look, then turned back to the canopy and stared out into the stars.
***
“That could hardly have gone better,” Rose said.
Kurt smiled as she rolled off him and lay down on the deck. She'd come to his office as soon as she’d put her pilots to bed, then practically dragged him down and climbed on top of him, her fingers hastily unbuttoning his uniform. Kurt hadn't had any time for foreplay, but judging from the noises she’d made it hadn't mattered. Like so many others, Rose found being in combat and surviving exciting.
“It did have its moments,” he agreed. He would have loved to stay beside her for hours, perhaps gently rubbing and kissing her breasts in preparation for a second round, but time wasn't on their side. Maybe, when they returned to Earth, they could take a holiday somewhere away from everyone else. “Or did you mean the sex?”
Rose poked him as he sat upright and stumbled towards the shower. “I meant the battle,” she said. “We had the advantage and never let go of it.”
“True,” Kurt agreed. He stepped into the shower and turned the tap, allowing warm water to cascade down into the basin. Behind him, Rose stepped into the shower too and hugged him, her bare breasts pushing against his back. “But we also lost the advantage of surprise.”
Rose snickered. “I believe it’s your job to worry about it,” she said. “I merely care for my pilots.”
Kurt sobered. Ark Royal had taken serious losses in pilots during their first mission, but this promised to be worse. They were jumping right into the heart of enemy territory, after all, and the enemy had already managed to damage the carrier. Who knew what else they could do, given a few days to prepare a warm reception? There were just too many possibilities.
“Speaking of which,” he said in a casual tone he knew wouldn't fool her, “how are they coping with Woodrow’s death?”
“They liked her,” Rose said. She started to scrub his back, her fingers reaching down to stroke his buttocks. “Poor kids. They have to get close to each other, they have to rely on each other, yet ... they take it badly when they lose their fellow pilots.”
“I know,” Kurt said. It took time to develop the strange mixture of affection, respect and dispassion that allowed the squadrons to remain effective, after losing several pilots in combat. He’d often considered trying to split up the squadrons in the hope it would make it easier to slot a pilot from one into another, but he had a feeling it would just reduce overall effectiveness. “Very poor kids.”
He sighed. “Make sure you sleep with them tonight ...”
Rose pinched his bottom, hard.
“That wasn't what I meant,” Kurt said, turning to face her and reaching for the scrubber. “You need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't crack up under losing their first comrade – and friend.”
“I know,” Rose said. She stuck out her tongue. “But it was so easy to take advantage of it.”
Kurt rolled his eyes, then sobered. If the squadrons had had a greater percentage of veterans, men and women who would take losing their fellows in their stride, he would have felt happier about them. But, as it was, the rooks had just lost their first friend and comrade to the aliens. And there would be more to come.
“Take care of them,” he said, as he washed her back, then manipulated the shower to cleanse his body of soap. “Don’t give them any chance to brood, not now. Once they’re awake ...”
Rose grinned. “More exercises?”
“More exercises,” Kurt said. “Keep them busy, keep them occupied, keep them thinking about the future rather than the past. Hell, if you have to, kick someone out of the large entertainment suite and force the pilots to watch a movie together.”
“Perhaps not some of the movies they brought with them,” Rose said. “Do you know what some of them brought on their personal terminals?”
“I can guess,” Kurt said. It was a matter of a few seconds to download an entire collection of porn from the lunar datanet. Hell, there were always rumours of secret caches of porn hidden away on the military network, no matter how many WebHeads were gainfully employed keeping the military systems free of porn. He’d always believed that the rumours were meant to encourage the WebHeads to keep inspecting the older parts of the database. “I think they’d prefer something a little less ... interesting.”
Rose smirked again as she followed him out of the shower. “Or exciting?”
“Yes, please,” he said. He watched as she dressed, finding it oddly exciting. Rose taking off her clothes was obviously arousing, but why did he find her dressing to be almost as interesting? There was no time to think about it now. “Maybe something cartoonish.”
“They’re pilots, not little kids,” Rose pointed out. She buttoned up her jacket, then glanced at her reflection in the terminal. “I think they’d prefer a science-fantasy to a cartoon meant for kids.”
“Oh?” Kurt asked. “Who was it who forced me to endure all five remakes of Kung Fu Panda?”
Rose gave him the finger, then slipped out of the hatch.
Kurt chuckled as the hatch slid closed, then turned to his terminal and brought up the records of the battle. The analysts would clearly be ploughing through them for years to come, looking at every last aspect of the fight, but he wasn't searching for alien weaknesses. He just wanted to know how Prince Henry had performed.
“Not too bad, for someone without any combat experience at all,” he considered. The Prince hadn't switched to automatic fire as quickly as he should have done – Rose would have to point it out to him – but other than that he’d done well. And he'd picked off four alien fighters. There were pilots among the rooks who hadn't managed to hit any. “Not too bad at all.”
He sighed, wondering just what the Captain had said to the Prince. It had forced Kurt to make some awkward explanations, including one that would get him into trouble with the Captain if he ever heard it. The suggestion that he was still finding his way woul
dn't go down well with Captain Fitzwilliam. Or, for that matter, with his XO. She'd been quite annoyed to discover that the Captain and Admiral Smith had withheld Prince Henry’s presence on the ship from him.
His terminal pinged. “Meeting in thirty minutes,” the XO said. Her voice brooked no dissent. “Your presence is requested.”
“Understood,” Kurt said. He looked down at the terminal. There should be just enough time to complete a basic analysis of the engagement. Both the Captain and the Admiral would be very interested to hear it. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Nineteen
“This system is clearly more useful to the aliens than the last,” Ted said. He looked up at the display, showing dozens of alien ships moving between three tramlines. There might be almost nothing in the system apart from the tramlines, but that alone made the system worthwhile. “And our target is here.”
“Assuming, of course, that the intelligence officers are correct,” Captain Atsuko said, pessimistically. “If the system is largely useless ...”
“The attack on our ships proves that we have found something,” Shallcross snapped. “We must proceed, now. The aliens are no doubt already scrambling to reinforce their defences.”
“Almost certainly,” Ted agreed. He tapped the display. “They have had enough time, I think, to get a signal through to Target One. We must assume that they know we’re coming.”
He scowled. He’d feared encountering an alien fleet in this system, but they’d seen nothing apart from a handful of freighters or freighter-like vessels. If their drive systems hadn't matched the signatures from Alien-1, he might have wondered if they’d stumbled into someone else’s star system. The freighters showed no evident concern about a marauding alien battlefleet within the system.
All they’d have to do is turn off their drives and go dark, he thought. We’d never be able to find them even if we were inclined to try.
“Then the advantage of surprise is lost,” Captain Atsuko said. “We should withdraw, now.”
“We have not come all this way to withdraw,” Bellerose snapped. The Frenchman’s image seemed to splutter with indignation. “Right now, we are behind enemy lines. Even if we pull out successfully, without encountering any other threats, the aliens will have all the time in the world to prepare a warm reception for the next fleet heading their way. We have to move now!”
“I agree,” Shallcross added. “This isn't the time to turn back, Admiral.”
Ted saw both sides of the argument. They had a wonderful opportunity to knock the aliens back on their heels, if they managed to get to Target One in time. But, on the other hand, they had been detected ... and they’d been very lucky that the aliens who’d sighted them hadn't realised the full size of the fleet until it was too late. Target One would have, at best, nine hours before the fleet arrived ... longer, of course, if the aliens managed to delay Ted’s passage through the single remaining star system. If the aliens managed to put a substantially greater force in the system before they arrived, the task force could be chopped apart by overwhelming numbers.
But the Royal Navy hadn't earned its reputation by backing down when the odds looked too dangerous to proceed, particularly when there was no strong evidence that the odds were badly against them.
“No, it isn't,” he said, quietly. “We have to proceed.”
He looked from face to face for a long moment, then back at the display. “The aliens will, I hope, assume that we don’t know which tramline leads to Target One,” he said. “I want to dispatch one squadron of frigates to head directly to Tramline Two, escorted by a number of drones that will pretend to be our ships. The aliens were fooled by drones before; we can test them again, should the enemy enter this system in force. In the meantime, the remainder of the fleet will head towards Tramline Three, following a slightly elliptical course. We can at least try to hide our course as much as possible.”
“Too many unknowns,” Fitzwilliam muttered, too quietly for anyone but Ted to hear.
“Once we enter Target One,” Ted continued, “we can draw up a plan of attack.”
He paused. “I understand the risk we’re taking here,” he added. He wasn't surprised that at least one of his subordinates had doubts about the wisdom of their planned course. “But we are short of options. There is no time to probe Target One long enough to sniff out every last trace of enemy presence. We have to move fast.”
“Yes, sir,” Shallcross said. “We have enough firepower to make the aliens regret tangling with us.”
Ted nodded. “Good luck to us all,” he said. “Dismissed.”
He watched until all the images had vanished, then turned to look at Fitzwilliam. “Too many unknowns?”
“Yes, sir,” Fitzwilliam said. “Did the aliens track us leaving the last system? If so, they know roughly where we arrived in this system. What are they going to do about it? Are they going to be fooled by our diversionary operation or are they going to refuse to take the bait, if they suspect it is bait? Or will they just refuse to take it anyway?”
Ted nodded. If the aliens knew that humanity knew that Target One was a very important system, they were unlikely to move any defences away from it. But even if they didn’t know that the humans knew, they were still unlikely to weaken the system’s defences, not when the humans could easily take it into their heads to explore Tramline Three as well as Tramline Two. Far too much depended on just too many unknowns. What sort of reinforcements, he asked himself, could the aliens expect and from where? They might have an idea, now, of how the tramlines bound alien-ruled space together, but they still knew almost nothing about the alien society itself. Where did they consider important enough to be defended at all costs?
“We have little choice,” he admitted. “We need to proceed now.”
“We’re as ready as we will ever be,” Fitzwilliam confirmed. “All we have to do is get across the system and through the tramline before they send reinforcements after us.”
“Yes,” Ted agreed. A thought struck him and he looked over at Lopez. “Detach two frigates with orders to move ahead and probe the tramline. I want as much intelligence as possible before the main body of the fleet arrives.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
“With your permission, Admiral, I will get back to supervising my crew,” Fitzwilliam said.
Ted nodded, never taking his eyes off the display. The aliens were still apparently unaware of the human presence, although it would take time for them to notice the decoy fleet. But if someone in the previous system had sent a warning ... he shook his head, bitterly. Fitzwilliam was right, he knew. There were just too many unknowns.
***
“We found a few chunks of debris, but not much,” Anderson said. “Our best guess is that the alien overloaded his plasma cannons before ramming the hull.”
James nodded. Ark Royal’s solid state armour was a bitch to remove if repair work was necessary, he knew; it was one of the reasons why modern carriers were much more lightly armoured. It might have saved the carrier’s life – and the lives of all her crew – but it was also a major problem to repair.
Beside him, Commander Amelia Williams looked annoyed. “I assume it can't be repaired without a spacedock?”
“Not completely, no,” Anderson said. “We’d really need to take off the entire segment of armour, which would mean cutting a large chunk of the hull loose, then replacing it with another piece of armour. Until very recently, they didn't make it like that anymore.”
James gave him a sharp look. “But what can you do now?”
“We’re rigging up additional armour – lighter armour – to seal the gash and provide a limited amount of protection,” Anderson said. “However, I’d prefer to abandon this section of the ship altogether, sir; I couldn't offer any guarantees about how well the replacement would hold when the ship comes under attack. The wankers might know where the hull is weak and target it directly.”
“Or simply ram a few more ships into our hull,
” James muttered. It was a recurring nightmare, although he’d figured the aliens would prefer to ram the landing bays or launch tubes, rather than the armour itself. On the other hand, he couldn't deny that it had been effective. “Do whatever you can do in the time we have left.”
“Yes, sir,” Anderson said.
Amelia walked with him as they left Anderson and his repair crews to get on with it. “We’ve replaced most of the damaged blisters from our spares,” Amelia said. “But they’ll do it again, won’t they?”
“Blow them off the hull?” James asked. “They’ve discovered the tactic works, so they’ll do it again and again. We don’t really have many other options.”
He smiled. At least the techs had finally managed to replace most of Ark Royal’s older sensor systems with newer ones. There were far fewer problems in integrating their systems with the rest of the Royal Navy’s, let alone foreign systems. But it was still a minor headache for the engineers.
Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch Page 19
