Ark Royal

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Dear God,” Farley said, very quietly.

Ted was stunned. It was rare, very rare, for one starship to try to deliberately ram another — and to succeed in ramming her target. No matter what civilians might say, it was about as likely to happen as crashing into an asteroid while flying through an asteroid belt without bothering to keep a careful eye on the sensors. But the frigates had sacrificed themselves to give the carrier — and the POWs — time to escape.

The aliens seemed equally stunned. Their starfighters flipped backwards, away from Ark Royal, even though they had nowhere to go. Could the one remaining alien craft, the giant battlecruiser, take them onboard? Or could they return to the planet and land under their own power? Intelligence’s best guess was that the alien starfighters were no more capable of landing on a planet than humanity’s starfighters, but what if they were wrong? Ted shook his head, dismissing the thought. As long as the starfighters stayed away from his ship, it didn't matter what happened to them.

“The ship-mounted plasma cannon must have a recharge period,” Anderson muttered, through the intercom. “That would make sense, I think; they’d need to refill the containment chamber between shots…”

Ted couldn't disagree. If the aliens had been capable of firing multiple shots without pause, all three frigates would have been destroyed as soon as they entered firing range. Instead, they’d taken out a carrier and damaged the alien chances of catching their target.

“Recall our starfighters, then keep us heading towards Tramline Two,” he ordered. “Target the battlecruiser with the mass driver, then open fire if you believe you have a reasonable chance of scoring a hit.”

“Understood,” Farley said, although he sounded doubtful. The alien battlecruiser was surrounded by a swarm of starfighters, buzzing around like angry bees. It was unlikely that a projectile would get within kilometres of its target without being engaged and deflected or destroyed by the starfighters. Or an unpowered missile, for that matter. “I’ll watch for a suitable opportunity.”

Ted kept one eye on the alien ships as his starfighters reloaded, then repositioned themselves in the launch bay. His pilots needed a chance to rest and recuperate, but they were unlikely to get it; silently, he made a mental note to insist on training up new starfighter pilots if the war threatened to go on for much longer. There was no reason why a carrier the size of Ark Royal couldn't carry more than one starfighter pilot per starfighter, allowing the starfighters to be turned around and pushed back into combat quicker than before.

The aliens kept their distance as the giant carrier moved rapidly towards Tramline Two. Ted couldn’t help wondering if they’d learned caution… or if they were merely waiting for reinforcements. His imagination provided too many possibilities, including the very real danger of running into an alien ambush as soon as they jumped through the tramline. But if there was an ambush waiting for them, the optimistic side of his mind pointed out, why had the aliens sought to bring them to combat already? They could just have herded Ark Royal and her flotilla towards Tramline Two without coming close enough to engage the carrier.

No way to know, he reminded himself.

He keyed his console, instead. “James, make sure that everyone has a bite to eat,” he ordered. “I want them as alert as possible when we jump through the tramline.”

“Understood,” his XO said. “I’ll see to it at once.”

Ted wondered, in a moment of mischievous amusement, just how badly the reporters were taking the running battle. Had they learned to read the display well enough to realise that all of the frigates were now gone? Or had they concluded that Ark Royal had actually won the battle outright, rather than scoring a victory on points? He considered, briefly, calling their compartment and asking them, before dismissing the thought as unworthy of him. There was no point in wasting time…

Midshipwoman Lopez appeared with a tray of food packets, which she passed around the bridge. Ted took his gratefully, silently impressed that the young woman was bearing up well under the stress of combat — and dealing with reporters. He made a mental note to ensure she was promoted when they returned to Earth, perhaps with a transfer to a more modern starship if it was what she wanted. Or maybe she’d prefer to stay on Ark Royal. Unless the human race made a definite breakthrough in point defence — and light armour — the modern carriers were little more than death traps.

“Thank you,” he said. The packaged food had no taste, as far as he or anyone else had been able to determine, but it did help him to become more alert. He ate the two ration bars — they had the consistency of fudge, although not the taste — and then passed her the empty package. “How are the reporters coping?”

Midshipwoman Lopez smiled. “They’re coping about as well as can be expected,” she said. “I don’t think they understand the situation.”

Ted smiled. It was a very diplomatic answer. “Good,” he said. “Keep an eye on them, once you have finished with the food.”

He turned back to the display as Tramline Two loomed up in front of them. The aliens might well have left a stealthed picket somewhere along the tramline, watching the human ships as they fought their desperate battle for survival. They'd clearly had a ship at Tramline Four, so why not one at Tramline Two. And they’d have a very good idea of where — precisely — the human ships would jump into the system. There was no time to do anything to make their jumping coordinates more random. If the aliens had an ambush waiting for them, it would be impossible to avoid. They’d just have to hope they could fight their way through it.

“All starfighters are ready to launch,” Fitzwilliam reported. “The pilots are standing by.”

Ted scowled. The pilots had waited for hours, then fought savagely… and all the best studies agreed that starfighter pilots should have hours of rest between bouts of combat. But the scientists who had carried out the studies weren't on the carrier. He had no choice, apart from sending his exhausted pilots back into the fight. Assuming, of course, the aliens were lurking in ambush.

“Jump,” he ordered.

He braced himself as the display went dark, then flickered back to life as they materialised within the new star system. The aliens could be waiting… but nothing materialised, apart from a single icon that was drifting five hundred thousand kilometres from their position. It looked like a monitoring satellite, Ted decided, which was confirmed when the satellite started to send a stream of data into the inner system. Ted ordered its immediate destruction — a single blast from a railgun would suffice — then turned his attention to the sensor reports. There was one source of signals within the inner system… and only one other tramline.

“It isn't jumping back towards human space,” Annie reported.

Ted shrugged, briefly considering their options. He could launch an ambush himself, when — if — the alien ship came through the tramline, but it would be too risky. God alone knew what was lurking within the alien system, yet if they’d left Alien-One largely undeveloped to avoid alerting human survey ships, there was no guarantee that they'd done the same for Alien-Two. At some point, he knew, they would have to fortify their worlds to prevent the humans from accidentally stumbling over their settlements and then escaping to alert the human race.

“Take us towards it anyway, best possible speed,” he ordered. Turning, he looked over at Farley. “Launch two of our remaining drones towards the alien world. I want to know what — if anything — is there, waiting for us.”

There was a chime from his console. “I'd like to withdraw half of the pilots for a rest in the sleep machine,” Fitzwilliam said. “They need it, desperately.”

Ted cursed under his breath. They were still too close to the tramline for him to be sanguine about stripping half of the starfighters from the launch roster. But, at the same time, he knew his pilots were exhausted.

“Hold for ten minutes,” he said, studying the tramline as it fell behind them. “I want to see what the aliens do.”

“Understood,” Fitzwilliam said.

He didn't say anything else, for which Ted was grateful. Maybe he had wanted to steal command for himself, once upon a time. Ted couldn't really blame him for wanting to promote himself by any means possible. But he was smart enough to know that they couldn't afford internal bickering, not now. The minutes ticked away with no sign of the alien battlecruiser.

“Launch another drone,” Ted ordered. The further they moved from the tramline, the harder it would be to pick up a transit signature when the alien ship finally made its appearance. “I want to know when it arrives.”

“Yes, sir,” Farley said. He hesitated, noticeably. “We only have three drones left.”

Ted sighed. “Launch it anyway,” he ordered. The beancounters would make a terrible fuss, but without that information they might well be caught by surprise when the battlecruiser made its return appearance. He keyed his console. “James, send half the pilots for their rest now.”

“Aye, sir,” the XO said. “And you should get some rest too, sir.”

Ted rubbed his eyes. The XO was right, he knew. But he was unwilling to leave the bridge until the battle was over.

“You get some rest,” he ordered, instead. “I need to stay here.”

Oddly, Fitzwilliam didn't argue.

Ted leaned back in his chair and watched the reports from the drones plunging into the inner system. The second tramline was on the other side of the source of alien signals, a Mars-like world that seemed to have nothing going for it apart from a surprisingly large number of small moons orbiting it. Ted found himself wondering if the aliens had actually captured hundreds of asteroids and steered them into planetary orbit, producing a vast network of habitats and industrial nodes. But the world seemed surprisingly undefended for an industrial complex… and besides, it was far too close to the front lines.

But the Russians wanted to turn New Russia into a centre of industry, he thought. They didn't know that the aliens might come on the offensive at any moment.

He puzzled over the issue as the data continued to flood into the computers. The analyst section identified a handful of small mining complexes, all disappointingly comparable to human systems. It seemed the aliens didn't bother to waste ultra-advanced technology on mining camps, any more than the human industrial complexes. Most of the technology used to mine the asteroids and the lunar surface predated the general advance into space itself.

“Curious,” he muttered, out loud. “All that industry and hardly any defences.”

“We might not be able to see the defences, sir,” Farley pointed out. “We’re operating at quite some distance from the planet.”

Ted smiled, calculating the vectors. If the alien battlecruiser didn't make its appearance, he would be tempted — very tempted — to pause long enough to lay waste to the system. The outcome of modern wars were largely determined by the production war, with one side out-producing its rival and crushing its enemies under the sheer weight of its produce. But the aliens knew where humanity’s industrial centres were located, allowing them to target their attacks on facilities that had taken years to produce, while the human race had no idea where to hit their enemy’s industrial base. A few deep-strike raids, Ted realised, and the human race would lose many of its industrial complexes. And the war itself would be lost with them.

“Continue on our present course,” he ordered, finally. Where was the damn battlecruiser? Surely the aliens would want to keep tabs on Ark Royal, rather than let her wander through alien-controlled space without supervision. “Alert me when we make our closest approach to the planet.”

He glanced at the timer. Nine hours to go. Fitzwilliam was right. He did need to sleep.

Once he’s had his shot in the sleep machines, I’ll take mine, Ted thought. He disliked the sleep machines — they just didn't feel right — but there was no alternative. And then I might feel more alert.

“They reacted rather oddly, sir,” the Marine reported. “As soon as we jumped, they started keening.”

Charles frowned, studying the alien prisoners through the surveillance sensors. The aliens hadn't shown much reaction to the quarantine compartment or the human observers, but that could be nothing more than lessons from an alien version of the dreaded Conduct After Capture course. What would the aliens, who had presumably known about humanity long enough to devise protocols for any of their race who happened to be taken prisoner, have told them to do? Humans were supposed to restrict themselves to name, rank and serial number… although if the captors felt like conducting a more rigorous interrogation, it was unlikely that any of the prisoners could have held anything back.

Not that it matters, he thought, wryly. They can't speak English and we can't speak their language. We might have captured the King of all the Aliens and we’d never know it.

“Interesting,” he said. The human observers had retreated hastily, complaining about their ears hurting. “Have they done anything else?”

“No, but they must have sensed the jump,” the Marine said. “They know there’s no hope of recovery now.”

Charles sighed. No one had seriously considered having to deal with prisoners from an alien race, not until Vera Cruz… and, as far as he knew, no real protocols had been developed to handle the situation. The planned First Contact bore no resemblance to what had actually happened. Between them, the doctors and the Marines were making it up as they went along.

“It would give them a reason to talk to us,” Charles said. “But if they can't…”

He shook his head. These days, human prisoners were either treated under the laws of war or rated as terrorists, depending on when and where they were captured. The Third World War had left massive scars on the human psyche, sweeping away much of the idealism that had marked the previous century. POWs could expect to be held until the end of the war — unless someone arranged a prisoner exchange — or to be interrogated and then shot. Aliens, on the other hand… even if they’d merely captured the alien version of junior crewmen, they still needed to be treated carefully.

“I’ll discuss it with the Captain,” he said. “Have they managed to master their cell?”

The Marine smiled. “They didn't have any problems with the knobs,” he said. “Turns out they like the cell warm, but moist. Feels like Kuala Lumpur in there, sir. I think they would put it even higher if they could.”

“We’ll have to build them a better cell, when we get them home,” Charles said. He looked up as Doctor Hastings stepped into the observation sector. “Doctor.”

“Major,” the doctor responded.

Charles looked at her, thoughtfully. She looked as tired as everyone else felt, but there was a curious excitement pushing her onwards. “What have you discovered?”

“I’ve been trying to work out a baseline for this race,” the doctor said. She smiled as she pushed past him to look at the aliens. “Of our nine captives, I believe that four of them are actually female.”

“Oh,” Charles said. He looked back at the aliens, puzzled. As far as he could tell, there were no physical differences beyond skin colour. There were no breasts or penises. “How do you tell the difference?”

“There are none, on the surface,” the doctor said. “But internally there are some quite significant differences. That one there” — she pointed to a green-skinned alien who looked identical to the others — “is female, with an organ that seems to produce eggs for expulsion into the water. Males” — she nodded to another alien — “produce sperm, which is also expelled into the water.”

“Tadpoles,” Charles said, in sudden understanding.

“Indeed,” the doctor said, giving him a smile that made her tired face look strikingly pretty. “My best guess, Major, is that they reproduce by ejaculating into warm water, rather than direct sexual contact. It’s quite likely that they don’t have any real concept of physical love as we understand the term, or bastardry for that matter. Their society might well be very different from ours.”

Charles had a sudden vision of the aliens leaving sperm and eggs everywhere they went, hoping that they would match up and produce children. Once conceived, what would happen to the child? Instead of one parent… who would take the children in? Their society must have people trained to serve as mothers and fathers, even if they weren't biologically related to the child’s parents. Hell, the child’s parents might never even have met!

“There are no other major differences between the sexes,” the doctor added. “I think that they won’t have invented any form of sexual discrimination, not when females are fully as strong as males.”

“But they miss out on a lot,” Charles mused. “No sex.”

“It would seem perfectly normal to them,” the doctor pointed out, tartly. “And besides, do you know how much time is wasting having and rearing children?”

Charles shrugged. “It used to be that the best years of a woman’s life were the ones where she was expected to have children and bear the burden of raising them,” the doctor explained. “By the time the children were old enough to flee the nest, their mother couldn't really do anything else. It was only since the development of technology that the women could go back to work — and now, with life-extension treatments, the women have more years to play with. How many female geniuses were lost to the ages because of the demands of childbirth?”

The alarms howled before Charles could reply. He glanced at his terminal, then swore.

“They’re back,” he said.