Ark Royal

Chapter Seventeen

The days started to blur together as Ark Royal made her elliptic journey towards New Russia. Ted ran endless drills, testing the new starships along with Ark Royal’s new crewmen, while keeping a wary eye out for trouble. The handful of human colony worlds they passed signalled briefly, but received no reply. Ted had strict orders to maintain radio silence, even if they weren't trying to hide completely. Privately, he suspected that someone at the Admiralty was trying to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to reassure the defenceless worlds that there was still a human space navy, but avoid revealing any compromising details, just in case.

Two weeks into the passage, he finally hosted a dinner for the reporters and a handful of senior officers. None of the reporters seemed particularly impressed by the food, although the more experienced ones kept their complaints down to a minimum. The Royal Navy certainly could have produced tastier food for its crewmen, but senior officers — it was commonly joked — preferred the standard rations in order to keep their crews hopping mad, ready to take it out on the enemy. Ted knew there were some stored rations intended for Admirals; he’d briefly considered sharing them with the reporters before dismissing the idea and insisting they ate the standard fare. Let them get a taste of the real naval experience.

As always, most of their questions were either absurd or unanswerable. Ted had no intention of discussing his non-existent love life with anyone, particularly reporters, and he had great difficulty in believing that anyone would be actually interested. Nor did he have any real idea what awaited them at New Russia. The aliens might have started to build the system up into a springboard for attacking Earth… or they might have started to settle the world with their own colonists… or they might simply have reduced the surface of the planet to radioactive ash. Ted had no way of knowing and no intention of allowing himself to develop preconceptions that could easily blind him to the truth.

“I'm surprised that you’re not serving wine,” one of the reporters observed. “Or is this a dry ship?”

“We’re going into combat,” Ted reminded him, keeping his expression blank. Was that question a jab at him or was it a wild coincidence? “I do not feel that drunken crewmen would help our chances.”

He exchanged glances with Fitzwilliam, who scowled. There was no way to know the motives behind the question. It was quite possible, he admitted to himself, that the reporter wanted something alcoholic himself. They had brought a bottle or two each, according to the crewmen who had helped them unpack, but hardly enough for them to even get a pleasant buzz after the first few days. But Ted had no intention of serving anything alcoholic anywhere he was in command. He didn’t need the temptation himself.

“But we’re not crewmen,” another reporter objected. “And there isn't much to do onboard ship.”

Ted grinned, openly. Nothing to do? There was never any shortage of work to be done, even on a modern carrier. There were exercises and drills, spare parts to be inventoried… the crewmen could work from dawn till dusk and never get anywhere near finished. And then there was the ever-present rounds of basic maintenance. God alone knew what would happen if they skipped a few sections, but Ted had a very good idea. It would come back to haunt them at the worst possible time.

But he supposed that wasn't entirely true of the reporters. Only a handful of crewmen would speak to them openly, while the senior officers had been carefully briefed on what they could and couldn't say. The reporters were denied access to all of the interesting parts of the ship, leaving them wandering the corridors, chatting to crewmen in the mess or lurking in their cabins, accessing and viewing entertainment programs the Admiralty deemed appropriate for its crewmen. It was a shame they couldn't be put to work, Ted knew, but he wouldn't have trusted them to replace even the simplest plug-and-play component.

“That’s the nature of wartime,” he said, instead of pointing out that the crewmen had a great deal to do. “Long days, weeks and even months of boredom, broken only by moments of terror. When we reach New Russia, I assure you that you won’t be bored.”

The reporters didn't seem too happy at the reminder. They’d started out with the assumption that Ark Royal was effectively invincible, an assumption Fitzwilliam had dispelled when he’d shown them the damage inflicted by the aliens during the first battle. The next time, Ted knew, the aliens would be ready for them. Ark Royal was tough as nails, but a handful of nukes would crack her armour or — if they detonated inside her hull — vaporise her outright.

“True, Captain,” Yang said. “Will we be permitted to observe the battle from the bridge?”

“Perhaps not,” Ted said. “We have a secondary bridge that you can use as an observation point.”

He had to smile at their puzzlement. Ark Royal had been deliberately over-engineered, with almost every department provided with its own backup. The secondary bridge had never been reactivated completely — the CIC provided a secondary nexus of control and if it were to be taken out the entire ship would be lost with it — but it would let the reporters feel important as they watched the holographic displays. And it would keep them out of his and his XO’s hair.

“It seems that you have too many bridges on this ship,” Yang observed. “Did the designers overdo it?”

Ted smirked. “This isn't a civilian ship,” he reminded him. As if the reporter could be in any doubt! “We don't have time to wait for help if we run into trouble.”

He looked up as Midshipwomen Lopez entered, pushing a trolley in front of her. Two of the younger reporters actually helped to pile up the dirty plates for disposal, something that puzzled Ted — good manners were not something he associated with reporters — until he realised that they were trying to impress the young lady. So far, there had been no actual trouble, but Fitzwilliam had quietly told him that several of the reporters had tried to lure crewmen and women into their bunks. Ted had no objections, as long as it was a willing liaison, but some of the reporters he’d met didn't seem to know the meaning of the word no.

The terrifyingly thin young reporter looked over at him, nervously. “Are we going to run into trouble?”

“We’re looking for it,” Yang said, before Ted could say a word. They exchanged glances of mutual understanding. Yang, whatever his faults, was an experienced embed. If the other reporter had any qualifications for her position, Ted had no idea what they were. “This isn't a pleasure cruise, you know.”

The reporter’s face seemed to colour, very slightly. Ted couldn't help wondering just how much work she’d had done on her body; her face was unnaturally pale as well as thin. There were no shortage of humans who modified themselves to cope with the dictates of fashion or to live on marginally habitable worlds, but the reporter seemed to have taken it to an extreme.

“I know,” she said, finally. It was almost a whisper. “I know.”

Ted shrugged, inwardly. He’d suffered through four years at the Academy, plenty of time to come to terms with his own mortality. The Royal Navy’s highest losses — before the aliens had arrived — hadn't come from combat, but training exercises and simple shoddy maintenance. Each student had been told, time and time again, that they couldn't afford to take their eyes off the ball, not even for a second. Some of the horror stories had been exaggerated, but they’d still sunk in. Death was always a constant threat for young crewmen.

But the reporter had grown up in a safe world, where there had been no real danger. She was lucky, Ted knew, but she was also ignorant. Did she honestly believe, he asked himself, that her reporter ID would save her from alien missiles? The aliens hadn't bothered to check ID cards before opening fire in previous battles. They would hardly start now. Or had she accepted the theoretical danger and only just realised that it was real?

Midshipwomen Lopez departed, then returned with another trolley two minutes later. This one held small bowls of rice pudding, flavoured with spices and fruits the galley staff had scrounged up during the celebrations on Earth. Ted waited until each of the reporters had a bowl in front of them, then motioned for them to start eating. This time, it tasted better than he recalled. Clearly, having a famous starship making the requests helped ensure they got the very best of foods.

Smiling to himself, he finished his bowl and then nodded to Farley, the junior crewman present. Farley tapped his knife against his glass for attention, then stood.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I give you God, the King and the United Kingdom.”

The reporters drank, some more enthusiastically than others. Fruit juice was common on earth, but rare on interstellar starships. Ted wondered, absently, just which of the reporters considered themselves neutral observers, then dismissed the thought. In his experience, there was no such thing as a neutral reporter. There were those who kidded themselves that they were being unbiased and those who were so prejudiced against the military that they swallowed the enemy’s story, hook, line and stinker.

Good thing the aliens don’t seem to care about our reporters, he thought. If they did, they could probably split the defensive alliance in half, just by telling us what we wanted to hear.

He rose to his feet. “Thank you for coming,” he said. The toast marked the end of the formal dinner. “As you will appreciate, my staff and I have work to do. But you are welcome to remain here as long as you like.”

Fitzwilliam followed him as he strode out of the private mess. “Captain,” he said, once the airlock was closed. “I didn't realise that they would be so awful as a group.”

“They wanted to outnumber us,” Ted snapped. He didn't really blame his XO for the dinner; hell, he’d heard stories of far less pleasant dinners with reporters and other unwelcome guests. “And they wanted to do something other than sit in their cabins.”

He shook his head, then jerked a hand towards the bulkhead. “Don't you just wish you could put them all down there?”

Fitzwilliam nodded in understanding. The star system they were travelling through had a barely-habitable world that was coming out of an ice age. Judging the world useless for conventional settlement, humanity had turned it into a penal colony. Criminals deemed utterly unredeemable were loaded into one-shot transport capsules, given a small quantity of food and supplies, then shot down into the planet's atmosphere. If they lived or died… no one on Earth gave a damn. The sociologists claimed that they would form a united society within two to three hundred years, but Ted had his doubts. A society built on criminals who should have been executed would be very far from stable.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “It would be pleasant, wouldn't it?”

Ted smiled, then turned to head towards his cabin. “I’m going to get a nap,” he said. He needed a shower too, just to wash the reporters off his skin. “Take command when shift changes, then ping me. I've got paperwork to do.”

“You really should consider coming with us.”

Major Charles Parnell shrugged. The seven-man Russian commando team had largely kept themselves to themselves during the first two weeks of the voyage, even though they’d been given quarters — barracks — right next to the Royal Marines. Now, their leader had finally condescended to speak to the British CO, even though he clearly had his doubts about the wisdom of talking to anyone. But they did have to coordinate their deployment with Ark Royal.

“It might be interesting,” he agreed. “But we have other orders.”

The Russian — the only name he'd given anyone was Ivan, which Charles suspected was a false name — snorted, rudely. He was a terrifyingly big man, his skin bulging with implanted weapons and combat systems. There had been no attempt to make him look normal, something that impressed and alarmed Charles in equal measure. Even the most capable cyborgs in British service still looked human.

“We have ours too,” Ivan said. “We have to get down to the surface before they react to our presence.”

“We understand,” Charles said. It was going to be tricky, even if the alien sensors were no better than human sensors. Entering a planet's atmosphere would leave a trail a blind man could spot. The aliens could simply track them to their destination or intercept them in flight. “You will have all the support we can muster.”

Ivan grunted. “Perhaps you should shoot those reporters out of missile tubes,” he grated. He muttered a handful of Russian words Charles recognised, then slipped back to English. “They are pains in the buttocks.”

“You never spoke a truer word,” Charles said. Royal Marines were discouraged from talking to the press, which hadn't stopped the assholes from badgering him and his men for interviews. It wasn't as if they had anything useful to say — or even anything newsworthy. “I will speak to the XO and ask him to tell them to leave you and your men alone.”

Ivan muttered something in Russian about Siberia and the proper punishment for inquisitive reporters, then tapped the display. “The main body of settlement on New Russia is here,” he said, pointing to the main continent. “We intend to land here.”

Charles gave him a surprised look. Royal Marines were no strangers to long route marches, but Ivan was talking about walking several thousand miles to the settlements. It would take weeks, even for the fittest soldiers in the human sphere. He found himself eying the cyborg implants, wondering if they were far more capable than he had assumed. But there was no way to know.

“There is a hidden military facility not too far from our planned landing zone,” Ivan explained, reluctantly. “The planetary government will have relocated there, as planned, in the wake of the battle. We will make contact with them, then proceed to gain a full report of conditions on the ground.”

“That makes sense,” Charles agreed. He wondered, absently, if the Russians would ever have told anyone about the facility without being pressed, then decided it didn't matter. It wasn't as if British secrets were shared openly either, although he knew that the other human powers had parsed them out. “How do you plan to get down to the surface?”

There was a long awkward pause, long enough to make Charles wonder if the Russians really did have a plan — or if they were merely playing it by ear.

“That,” Ivan admitted finally, “is where we need your help.”

Ted had been right, he knew, when he'd told the reporters that military service was mostly boredom, broken by moments of screaming terror. Knowing was half the battle, as the saying went, yet it wasn't that much help. In a sense, he realised now, he'd been spoilt by spending most of his career as the commander of a starship held in the reserves. It had been simple enough to arrange for bottles of booze to be shipped to him from Earth or even made a brief visit to Sin City or another Luna settlement. The Admiralty had paid so little attention to Ark Royal that he could have turned her into a spacefaring gambling palace and they would never have noticed.

But now, alone and isolated, Ted couldn't help feeling the urge for a drink. It mocked him, reminding him that he hadn't been able to work up the determination to smash his remaining bottles of alcohol… or even to do more than insist that Anderson dismantled his still. He could pour himself a drink, the voice at the back of his head insisted; he could pour himself a drink and take a swig and no one would ever know.

But it wouldn't stop at one glass, he told himself, savagely. Would it?

It wouldn't, he knew. Once, he had finished one or two bottles of Anderson’s rotgut every day. In hindsight, it was a minor miracle he hadn't managed to invalidate himself out of the Royal Navy. It wasn't uncommon for ship-made alcohol to be effectively poison, if the brewer didn't know what he was doing. If the Admiralty had been paying enough attention to realise that he was drinking himself to death…

They knew, his thoughts reminded him. Someone had made note of his drunkenness and reported it to the Admiralty. It had even been in his personal file. They just didn't care.

Angrily, he paced over to the bunk and lay down, pulling the blankets over his head. He felt too keyed up to sleep, too tired to remain awake. There were pills he could take, he knew, but they tended to have unfortunate side-effects. Instead, he closed his eyes and forced himself to mentally recite the regulations governing waste disposal on starships. It was an old trick he’d learned at the Academy. The tutors had sworn blind that it beat counting sheep. Slowly, he fell asleep…

And then the alarms went off.

Ted jerked out of bed as red lights flashed. “Red Alert,” Fitzwilliam’s voice said. “I say again, Red Alert. This is not a drill. All hands to battlestations. Captain to the bridge.”

Cursing, his blood running cold, Ted keyed his bedside console. “Report,” he snapped. “What’s happening?”

“Incoming alien starfighters,” Fitzwilliam reported. There was a grim note to his voice that belayed any hope that it might be a sadistic drill. “We’re under attack!”