The Nelson Touch

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Get down!”

Charles threw himself to the ground as the alerts screamed in his ear. Moments later, the ground shook violently as the first KEW crashed down, only a kilometre from his position. He used his suit to burrow deeper into the ground as shockwaves passed over his head, then relaxed as stillness returned. When he pulled himself back to his feet, he found himself looking on a scene from hell.

“I think they got them,” Sergeant Jackson said.

“Yes,” Charles agreed. He’d been near KEW strikes before, but only one or two isolated weapons used to clear the way for his soldiers. This, on the other hand, was over a hundred projectiles, each one aimed at an alien vehicle or troop formation. The alien forces had been completely wrecked, while the vegetation had been flattened or set on fire. “I think they did.”

“All right,” the Rhino said. “The aliens have a large fleet inbound, so let’s try not to waste time. Case Omega is now in effect. Return to the base and prepare for immediate departure.”

Charles wasn’t surprised. Under Case Omega, the human troops would abandon most of their equipment on the ground, leaving certain weapons primed to fire at alien starships as they entered orbit. It wouldn’t take the aliens long to deal with them, but it might just buy the escaping humans some time. But if there was an alien fleet inbound, it was alarmingly likely that they would have real problems pulling everyone off the ground in time.

“Charles, you and your men are to return to the FOB,” the Rhino said. “You’ve been assigned a departure slot already.”

“Let’s hope the computer works,” Charles said, as he turned to lead the way across the shattered countryside. The logistics computer was an American attempt to avoid having to bring a logistics section along with them, but early results had not been encouraging. Human logistics officers could be convinced that serving units really needed extra supplies; the computer, it seemed, was less capable of understanding mission requirements. “And that the aliens don’t try to impede our departure.”

“At current rate,” Lopez said, “they will enter engagement range in two hours, forty minutes.”

Ted nodded, very slowly. The aliens were pushing their drives as far as they could, as if they feared the human troops would lay waste to the planet after they left the surface behind. He couldn’t deny that it was a tempting thought, but all the old arguments against mass genocide still held water. Besides, there might come a time when humanity and aliens could share the same worlds. There was no point in destroying a place that might one day include human settlers.

“Unfortunate,” he said. “How long will it take to load everyone on the transports and start running?”

“Roughly two hours,” Lopez said. She paused. “If the logistics computer can be trusted, that is.”

Ted scowled. Nothing went according to plan, not even the most careful plan devised by a hundred careful planners, who tried to account for every variable. Something always went wrong. A shuttle would develop drive problems, a team of soldiers would be caught out of place, the aliens would start firing on the shuttles with previously undetected antiaircraft weapons… there were just too many possibilities. But they had no choice.

He worked his way through the problem, piece by piece. The aliens would catch up with the fleet and force a battle. That much was clear. Or the aliens would head towards Tramline One themselves and block his line of retreat. That would force him to fight a battle on their terms. It wasn’t something that could be allowed. Or could it?

“Watch them carefully,” he ordered. “And see how they react.”

Time ticked by slowly as the first shuttles dropped down to the surface and returned, hauling a number of Marines back to the Marine Transports. Judging from some of the commentary, they were complaining loudly about being the first to leave, even though there was no time for any real complaints. Ted let out a private sigh of relief as the Royal Marines were returned to the transports, then placed in the queue for transfer back to Ark Royal. This time, if the aliens tried to board again, he would have reinforcements on hand to deal with the problem.

“It’s proceeding smoothly, without interference,” Lopez said. “Do you think they’re letting us go?”

Ted shrugged. “I think they’ve reasoned that it would be easier to take us out in space rather than on the ground,” he said. “Or maybe their command and control networks were shattered by the bombardment and they’re still putting them back together.”

He turned his gaze back to the alien fleet as the drones probed the outer edges of its formation, noting that it was definitely Force Two… but with a handful of minor additions. Ted was privately relieved to see that, even though Force Two was far more powerful than he cared to face. At least it suggested the aliens couldn’t produce a whole new fleet in time to be a factor in their escape.

There was a ding from the console. “Sir,” Lopez said, “they’re altering course.”

Ted nodded, unsurprised. The aliens had reasoned, correctly, that they couldn’t prevent Ted from abandoning and destroying Target One, if he felt like it. Instead, they were putting themselves between Target One and Tramline One, as he’d anticipated. But he didn’t feel any relief at watching the aliens keeping their distance. Instead, he knew he would have to force a battle on their terms.

“Tell the fleet to start making preparations to deploy mines,” he ordered. It had taken an hour to work out how to deploy the mines to best advantage… and he knew it could fail easily. But the aliens would have no reason to expect it. “But we will hold position until the last of the troops have returned to their ships.”

He turned his attention to the display monitoring the situation on the ground, carefully not looking at the near-orbit or deep space displays. The Rhino hadn’t sounded too keen on the idea of ordering an evacuation, but there was no choice, not really. And besides, they’d learnt a great deal about the aliens, captured tons of pieces of technology for the boffins to look at and forced the aliens to react to humanity for a change. The mission had been far from a complete waste of time.

“Admiral, Captain Junco sends his compliments and informs you that we now have fifty-two alien prisoners in his hold,” Lopez said, suddenly. “He wishes to know if you want to return them to the lifepods?”

“No,” Ted said. Quite apart from the danger of Force Two believing that the humans had rigged the lifepods to blow — a crime against humanity, according to international agreements the aliens hadn’t signed — they’d taken the aliens captive now. “He is to hold them until we can arrange a transfer.”

He looked down at his console for a long moment, then back up at Lopez. “Have a platoon of Royal Marines dispatched to assist,” he added. “I don’t want any problems with the prisoners.”

“No, sir,” Lopez agreed.

“That’s the last of the Marines off the mudball,” Farley reported. “The planet is deserted now, apart from the aliens.”

“Excellent,” James said. He looked up at the icons representing the alien starships, knowing that the Admiral would have no choice but to order an attack. “And our status?”

“We’re as ready as we will ever be,” the XO confirmed. “They’re just waiting for us there.”

James nodded. The aliens held all the cards — or so they thought. If the human ships charged their position, there would be a battle on alien terms. But if the human ships tried to evade, the aliens could just keep themselves between the human ships and the tramline… or intercept if the humans tried to head for another tramline. For a moment, James contemplated trying to return to Target Two, but he knew it would be far too dangerous, not when they knew so little about alien-held space. Their best bet was to try to beat Force Two before it could tear them apart.

“Back into the fire,” he muttered. “But we’ve been in tight spots before.”

Amelia gave him a sharp look. “Anything as bad as this, sir?”

James smiled. “Last time, it was just us facing a bad-tempered alien battlecruiser,” he said. “This time…”

“We’re facing an entire war fleet,” Amelia pointed out. “I think it’s a little different.”

“No, it isn’t,” James said. “This time, we have a fleet of our own — and we know we can give them a damn good kicking, even if we lose. So…”

He smiled, again. “So we know the aliens will remember us, no matter what happens,” he added. “And we will make it home.”

Amelia nodded, once.

James understood her worries. It was a tight spot, but he had faith in Admiral Smith. A man who could overcome his demons, climb out of the bottle and come up with a tactic for giving the aliens a very nasty surprise was clearly someone to reckon with. And to think that Uncle Winchester had nagged James to marry! Someone ought to be trying to marry Admiral Smith to a suitably aristocratic girl before he was too old to sire children. There was no shortage of girls who might accept a man with such a distinguished war record, even if his pre-war career had been… odd, to say the least.

He frowned as he remembered the Prince and his… affair with the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant. It would be unpleasant if it became public, no matter what everyone involved happened to think of it — and there would be some very nasty insinuations made by the media and just about everyone else. But James suspected the Prince hadn’t meant anything bad, not really. Like the younger James himself, he had been more of a thoughtless fool than indulging in deliberate malice. And yet that would be no consolation when it exploded in his face.

Amelia leaned over. “Captain?”

“I was distracted for a moment,” James said. Amelia worried about the effects of the Prince’s affair on her career, which was understandable. James could be demoted or dismissed, but he couldn’t be stripped of his title. Amelia, on the other hand, could lose everything. In theory, there was no blame to attach to anyone, as no regulations had been broken. But in practice, James knew, the world was rarely fair. “But I won’t be distracted any longer.”

He settled back in his chair as the fleet prepared to leave orbit, checking through the reports from the damaged parts of the ship. Anderson had cleared everything as much as possible, including rerouting everything from power conduits to datanet nodes, but James had no illusions. The designers might have included a great deal of interior armour, back when everyone had expected to face nukes on a regular basis, yet it wasn’t enough to stand up to a major internal explosion. A single nuke, detonating inside the ship, would blow the Old Lady into atoms.

“The Admiral has signalled the fleet to depart,” Lightbridge said. “With your permission?”

“Granted,” James said. “And prepare to execute the mine-laying operation on the Admiral’s command.”

He looked up sharply as another alert sounded on the console. “Captain,” Farley reported, “a second alien fleet has just entered the system.”

“Understood,” James said, as new icons appeared on the display, each one representing the rough location of an alien ship. Thankfully, they were far out of engagement range for the moment. The time-delay wouldn’t matter too much. “Keep me informed of their movements.”

He nodded to Amelia. “Maybe this is the worst tight spot after all.”

“Designate this third fleet as Force Three,” Ted ordered, keeping his voice under tight control. “Do we have a breakdown on its composition?”

“Four carriers, seventeen frigates,” Lopez said, after a long moment. “There may be others, but they didn’t pass close enough to the recon platforms to be detected.”

Ted nodded, grimly. On its own, Force Three could have been handled, but with Force Two also in the system there was a very real risk of being caught between two fires. They were committed to a close engagement with Force Two while Force Three came up behind them and stuck a knife in their backs. It wouldn’t be an easy matter to evade both of the fleets…

“Keep us moving towards Force Two,” he ordered. They’d have to try to beat Force Two before Force Three caught up with them. “Are the mine preparations completed?”

“Yes, sir,” Lopez said. “But they may see the trick coming.”

“Yes, they might,” Ted agreed. “But I don’t see any other way to even the odds.”

He forced himself to relax as the fleet picked up speed, advancing on Force Two. The aliens didn’t seem inclined to get out of their way, which made sense, or launch their starfighters. Like Ted himself, the alien commander seemed to want to wait to launch until the last possible moment… something that irked him, because it suggested they were facing a capable commander. But any armchair general could have picked that tactic up from reading a book.

Shaking his head, he looked over at Lopez. “Time to Point Normandy?”

“Fifty minutes,” Lopez said. “Assuming, sir, that the enemy fleet doesn’t change position.”

Ted doubted the aliens would move at all. They had the human fleet right where they wanted it; they wouldn’t want to alter course before they had a chance to close their trap. Indeed, Ted suspected the only thing that would make them change position was his own course changes… and only insofar as they could keep themselves between humanity and the tramline. But he needed them to stay right where they were.

“Let us hope it won’t,” he said. He briefly considered touring the ship — he’d done it before on the eve of battle — but it would be irresponsible to leave his post with two enemy fleets breathing down their necks. “All we can do now is wait — and pray.”

“This is the situation,” Kurt said, glaring down at his pilots. They looked back, their faces grim. Even the least experienced of them had seen enough war now to be thoroughly sick of battle. “One enemy force is blocking our way out of this cursed system; another is coming up behind us, intending to bugger us with a rusty chainsaw. This is a sticky situation.”

He paused, then continued. “The Admiral has a plan to cripple Force Two,” he continued. “However, in order to implement that plan, we have to do something that will slow us down, giving Force Three a chance to catch up with us. We may smash one fleet only to be smashed in turn by the other. I don’t have to tell you, I suspect, that that would be very bad.”

“No, sir,” Rose called out. “No one likes being buggered with a rusty chainsaw, sir. It’s in strict defiance of Royal Navy tradition. Unless, of course, they’re overcompensating for something.”

There were some chuckles from the pilots, most of whom looked better after Rose had cracked her terrible joke. Kurt smiled, inwardly. Most of the young men and women in front of him were about to die — the discrepancy between the alien forces and his own would make sure of it — but at least they’d die with smiles on their faces.

“As soon as the Admiral’s surprise hits them, we will launch,” Kurt continued. “And then we will hammer them so badly they’ll be blown right into the next system. Aim your torpedoes carefully, watch your flanks and don’t let them slip past you. Whatever happens now will depend on you.”

He took a long breath. “To your planes, ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded, quietly. He couldn’t help wondering how many of them were going to be looking at him after the battle — and how many of them would die. “See you on the far side.”

“The alien craft are entering deployment range,” Lopez said. “The mines are ready to deploy.”

“Deploy them,” Ted ordered. “And warn the crews to be careful.”

He watched, grimly, as mine after mine was launched into space. Unlike the previous deployment, these mines would continue to follow the same ballistic trajectory as the fleet itself, heading right towards the alien craft. After a long moment, when all of the mines were in space, Ted issued the next order.

“All stop,” he commanded. “I say again, all stop.”

Ark Royal quivered violently as her drives went into reverse, cancelling the massive starship’s velocity. One by one, the fleet slowed to a halt, relative to the alien ships, but the mines kept gliding forwards. Ted braced himself, expecting the aliens to notice the trick and take countermeasures, but they did nothing. Perhaps they thought that Ted hadn’t noticed Force Three until now… or perhaps they thought he’d been trying to force them to move and only just realised that he’d failed. There was no way to know.

“Mines entering attack range in thirty seconds,” Lopez reported. “They’re drawing on our active sensors, sir, rather than using their own.”

Ted nodded. One advantage of too-powerful active sensors — they dated back to the time Ark Royal was designed and built — was that they lit up their targets for everyone to see. The mines didn’t need active of their own, not as long as their mothership was close by so they could use their passive sensors to monitor her emissions. And it helped ensure they weren’t detected.

“Force Three is picking up speed,” Lopez reported. “She wants to catch us now, I think.”

“Too late,” Ted said. On the display, the mines had started to detonate. He’d picked their targets with a calculated ruthlessness that had surprised him, despite knowing what was at stake. “Far too late.”