Ark Royal

Chapter Fourteen

Ted couldn't help feeling a little amusement at how the officers on Nelson Base reacted when he and Fitzwilliam walked through the hatch. Once, they would have either ignored him or snickered at him behind his back. What could they say to a drunkard who had somehow lucked into keeping his command, even if his command was only a starship the Royal Navy used as a dumping ground for its problem children? But now, after his victory, they fell over themselves to shake his hand. Even the Marines seemed impressed.

He rolled his eyes as the First Space Lord’s latest assistant showed him into a small compartment, where the First Space Lord and a couple of junior officers were waiting for him. One of them was wearing the unmarked uniform favoured by the Intelligence Corps, the other was wearing the too-neat uniform of a PR officer. Ted sighed, inwardly; he’d hoped to avoid Public Relations as much as possible. It might be important to keep civilian morale up, but he hated giving interviews even to friendly reporters.

“Please, be seated,” the First Space Lord said. This time, it was clear, they wouldn't be visiting the main briefing compartment. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

Ted kept his face expressionless as he sat down and rested his hands in his lap. A private discussion meant another deployment, he hoped; he couldn't help feeling that the alternatives were worse. Perhaps they wanted him to go on a speaking tour, reassuring the public that all was well with the war. But, even after he’d stopped drinking, he was hardly as photogenic as the actor who’d played Dan Dare in the 2123 remake of the classic space opera. And no one would be reassured if they saw his service record.

The First Space Lord nodded to the Intelligence Corps officer. “Commander Steenblik?”

Steenblik nodded, then tapped a switch, activating the holographic processor. Ted studied him with some interest. Like most Intelligence Corps officers, there was a blandness about him that would have left him almost unnoticed, at least when compared to line officers. And yet he knew better than to underestimate the sandy-haired young man. The Intelligence Corps recruited only the smartest of officers, men and women willing to work behind the scenes to ensure that the Royal Navy got the intelligence it needed, when it needed it. They’d failed to predict the arrival of the aliens, admittedly, but no one else had done any better.

Unless the conspiracy theories are actually true, Ted thought, as he looked up at the display. If someone did know, that might explain our military build-up…

“The face of the enemy,” Commander Steenblik said, as an alien face appeared in front of them. “This is the most intact body we have, although it is quite badly damaged in several places. By comparing this body with the others, we have been able to put together a comprehensive picture of what the aliens actually look like. However, we still have plenty of unanswered questions about their biology, let alone their society.”

He smiled, rather humourlessly. “Despite being humanoid, they are completely unrelated to humanity,” he continued. “Although we believe that they and we can share the same worlds, the food we found in their stomachs — they have two separate stomachs — would be poisonous to us. We don’t think they can eat our foodstuffs. Their diseases will probably not affect us and vice-versa.”

“So no hope of any human-alien hybrids to end the war,” Fitzwilliam said, dryly. He nodded towards the holographic alien. “What sex is it?”

“Male, we think,” Steenblik said. “We’ve identified organs that seem to serve the role of testes, but the penis seems to be completely retractable… in truth, it will be several months before we can say anything with confidence. All the remaining bodies seem to share the same sexual characteristics, so we are assuming that they’re all male. However, I must caution you that we could be completely wrong. We have very little experience with alien biology.”

“Assuming you're right,” Ted said, “what does this say about them?”

“Nothing for certain,” Steenblik warned. “They may be as sexually restrictive as some of our darker societies or we may simply have failed to recover any female bodies. Statistically, two-thirds of the Royal Navy is composed of men, while certain units are male-only — the Marines, for example. We simply don't know enough to be able to say anything about their society from what little we pulled from the bodies.

“One thing we are fairly sure about is that they need water more than we do,” he continued, rotating the image so they could see the leathery skin. “This might explain the high concentration of water droplets in the wreckage; the aliens need a moist atmosphere to survive. Their eyesight may be better than ours, their bodies slightly weaker… although, again, we have no way to be sure. The alien bodies we recovered may well be atypical.”

Ted nodded, studying the alien. It was ugly as sin, he decided, although the aliens probably felt the same way about humanity. Was that the cause of the war? Had the aliens looked at humanity and decided that they were too ugly to live? Or maybe just that humans were inherently inferior and needed to be knocked down and out before they posed a threat to the alien civilisation?

Or maybe they’re just nasty bastards, he thought. But there was no way to know.

Fitzwilliam coughed. “Can they speak to us?”

“I think they would have real problems speaking English understandably, given the shape of their mouths,” Steenblik admitted. “But they would probably have no difficulty constructing a voder that would allow them to speak to us. We’re currently working on producing something similar, although — as we have no samples of the alien language — it’s all mainly guesswork.”

“There was an attempt to use the First Contact package at New Russia,” the First Space Lord said. “The aliens didn't respond.”

Ted frowned. The First Contact package had been dreamed up in the days when humanity expected to discover a new intelligent race at every new star. It was, in theory, simple to understand, at least for a race that understood enough scientific laws to make it into space. By law, every starship carried a copy, just in case they encountered an alien starship, but it had never really been tested. No one knew just how well it would work when aliens were encountered for the first time.

Not well, he decided. For all he knew, the aliens had interpreted the package as a challenge to do battle. Or maybe they just couldn't understand what they were hearing.

“We have also learned a great deal about alien technology from the battle,” Steenblik said, tapping a switch. The image of the alien vanished. “Their stealth systems, as we believed, are incredibly power-intensive, to the point that the aliens seem unable to use them and fire at the same time. They may also be unable to switch them on and off at will, which is fortunate. If they could, we would be in real trouble.”

Ted snorted. “You mean we’re not now?”

“Worse trouble, then,” Steenblik amended. “It’s possible — although we don’t know for sure — that their stealth systems actually impede their sensors and drives. We’ve been looking closely at the records of the battle and it’s clear that the aliens were slightly out of place when they dropped their stealth and attacked. They may well be unable to see where they’re going while under stealth. We also picked up faint hints that their drives are detectable at very close range; we’re currently programming drones to provide targeting, allowing the alien fighters to be wiped out before they can drop their stealth systems and attack.”

“That would be useful,” Ted agreed. He leaned forward. “Is there anything unusual about the alien hulls?”

“Their composites are not much different from our own,” Steenblik admitted. “There are some unusual points — the aliens seem to have turned their outer hulls into giant superconductors — but that would be well within our capabilities, if we had the need to duplicate it. We’re not sure why…”

“I bet I know,” Fitzwilliam said. “It’s part of their point defence system.”

Ted grimaced, remembering watching as his starfighters were blown out of space, their missiles picked off before they could reach their targets. Casualties had been high, even though the human starfighter pilots had been ready for the aliens this time. The only consolation was that there was no shortage of replacements. Ark Royal had moved from a dumping ground to a prime opportunity for glory and promotion. Assuming, of course, that the newcomers survived the war.

“That’s one theory,” Steenblik agreed. “However, we don't know for sure. Another possibility is that it’s related to their FTL drive; so far, we don’t even have a theory for how they’re able to use tramlines we cannot even begin to access.”

He shrugged. “A full report has been uploaded to the secure datanet…”

“And shared with our allies,” the First Space Lord said. “It was decided at the very highest levels” — he nodded towards a picture of the Prime Minister — “that our intelligence was best shared with the remainder of humanity.”

Ted lifted his eyebrows, surprised. He didn't disagree with the logic — like it or not, the whole human race had to remain united — but he was impressed that the decision had been taken so quickly. But then, there wasn't anything in their findings that would allow the Americans or the Chinese to reverse-engineer any alien tech ahead of Britain. The hell of it was that the human race needed someone to do just that.

The First Space Lord pressed his fingertips together as he sat back in his chair. Ted sucked in a breath, knowing that this was it. His superior was about to explain precisely why they’d been called to Nelson Base.

“So far, the aliens have made no further attempt at outflanking the defences,” the First Space Lord said. “They certainly have not attempted to attack Earth. However, we fear that this is just a matter of time. Ark Royal might be tricky to duplicate within a year, but we can improve our defences, start producing vast numbers of mass drivers and take other steps to make Earth less vulnerable. And we got very lucky when Ark Royal was in place to intercept the aliens.”

Ted couldn't disagree. The First Space Lord had gambled and won, but the aliens would be more careful next time. And they would probably start working on their own countermeasures against Ark Royal and her non-existent sisters. Even if they couldn't build nukes for themselves, which he strongly doubted, they could certainly recover them from New Russia. Unless the Russians had managed to fire off all their weapons before the aliens landed…

The First Space Lord took control of the display. “There was a great deal of arguing about the best way to proceed,” he continued. “However, the upshot of it was that Ark Royal was best employed in raiding New Russia, along with a couple of dozen older ships from minor powers. If there is a chance to strike some blows against the aliens, we should take them.”

Ted wondered, absently, just what deals had been struck to convince the Royal Navy to take the risk. The aliens had to know which tramlines the human race would need to use to reach New Russia, which meant that those systems would probably be heavily defended. There had been some political disputes between Britain and Russia over the years. Perhaps the Russians on Earth had offered to settle those in Britain’s favour in exchange for the raid. Or perhaps the Admiralty had reasoned that knocking the aliens back on their heels would help win time to prepare Earth’s defences.

“I would be delighted if you kicked the aliens off New Russia completely,” the First Space Lord continued, “but I doubt it would be possible. Instead, your orders are to give the aliens a nasty surprise and then attempt to make contact with any surviving humans on New Russia. The Russians have provided a contact team, which will actually land on the planet’s surface — if it seems possible. They’ve agreed that the final decision will be up to you.”

“Brave of them,” Fitzwilliam said.

Ted couldn't disagree. The aliens might well have exterminated most of the planet’s population from orbit… or simply taken control of the high orbitals and ignored the human population. But flying a shuttle through the alien positions would be tricky, almost suicidal. It was possible, he supposed, that the aliens could be decoyed away, but after the aliens had been fooled by the sensor decoys he’d deployed they’d be more careful about what they believed to be real.

“Precisely how you reach New Russia and engage the enemy will be your choice, of course,” the First Space Lord said. “However, we would like you to carry out the mission within the month.”

“That would give us time to outflank any alien pickets,” Ted mused. There were several tramlines that led through a series of useless or underdeveloped star systems, systems he suspected the aliens would probably ignore. But it wouldn't take more than a single stroke of bad luck for the aliens to get a fix on their position and scramble to attack. “As long as you didn't mind us taking the long road.”

The First Space Lord smiled. Traditionally, the Admiralty issued its orders and expected its subordinates to come up with their own operational plans. It made sense, Ted knew; there was no way to micromanage military operations across interstellar distances. The situation might change between a system CO sending a request for orders and receiving a response from the Admiralty, leaving the orders already out of date. But given how badly shocked everyone had been by the war, it wasn't impossible for the Admiralty to start issuing orders that tried to cover every little detail.

He was a CO himself, Ted remembered. He knows better than to try to micromanage.

“There is a catch,” the First Space Lord added.

Ted scowled, inwardly. There was always a catch.

“You’ll be taking a handful of embedded reporters with you,” the First Space Lord said. “I’m afraid it isn't negotiable.”

“Reporters,” Ted repeated.

“Reporters,” the First Space Lord confirmed. “I will expect you to show them every courtesy.”

Ted felt his scowl deepening. The last time he’d had to deal with reporters had been before his assignment to Ark Royal, when he’d been a mere Lieutenant. His CO at the time had told him that it was a perfect opportunity to broaden his mind and learn how to handle newcomers, something that Ted had clung to until he’d actually met the reporters. After that, he’d been convinced he’d somehow offended his Captain and the assignment was actually a non-too-subtle punishment.

“This is actually quite important,” the First Space Lord said. “Have you been following the mood on Earth?”

Ted shook his head. The First Space Lord nodded to the PR officer, who stepped forward.

“The public mood started out as wary, but confident,” the officer said. His nametag read Abramczyk. “After New Russia, it crashed right down and we had a whole series of riots led by people who thought that the entire world was about to come to an end. Then you pulled off your victory and the public mood started climbing upwards again.”

“Panicky civilians,” Fitzwilliam said.

“The average civilian knows nothing about the realities of naval combat,” Abramczyk reminded him. “They assume that the aliens can reach us in seconds and act on that assumption. The decision to try to cover up some of the details of New Russia didn’t really help, as it was poorly done and the truth leaked out. Having reporters on your ship may be a big step forwards towards rebuilding the public’s trust.”

Ted didn't — quite — sneer. “Sir,” he said, addressing the First Space Lord, “is that important?”

The First Space Lord didn't seem annoyed by the question. “Right now, the government is in a very weak position,” he said. “A number of MPs are threatening to desert — or are facing the risk of having their seats challenged in recall elections. If they lose their seats, we may face a reformed government that wants peace with the aliens, peace at any price. And Britain isn't the only country having problems. Both Russia and America may face political disasters in the next few months.”

“The aliens timed their attacks well,” Ted observed.

“Indeed they did,” the First Space Lord said.

Fitzwilliam looked over at Commander Steenblik. “Coincidence?”

“We don’t know,” Steenblik admitted. “It’s quite possible that they were watching us for years before finally starting the war. There were all of those reports about unknown starships being detected on long-range sensors…”

The First Space Lord cleared his throat. “You’ll take the reporters and like it,” he growled, addressing Ted. “You’ll have them bound by the War Powers Act, even the foreigners, so you can put them in irons if they really make a nuisance of themselves. But it is vitally important that we regain the public’s trust.”

Ted sighed. “Very well, sir,” he said. He had a vision of the reporters walking through his ship, harassing his crew. “I shall have them assigned quarters onboard Ark Royal. However, I will not tolerate my crew being harassed.”

“That is understandable,” the First Space Lord said. “You will have the power to deal with them, if necessary.”

Ted sighed, again. The War Powers Act did give commanding officers considerable leeway to deal with reporters and other subhuman forms of life, but it was subject to review. He could put a reporter in irons… and, if the Admiralty found it politically embarrassing, they could renounce him after the war.

“Understood, sir,” he said. “We’ll do our very best.”