The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Twelve

“I suppose it could be worse,” Fitzwilliam said.

Ted nodded in agreement as he sipped his tea. The flotilla was due to depart in two hours, but the final preparations had yet to be made. Between the diplomats, their aides and the researchers, Ted had had very little time to pay attention to the repair work. Fortunately, the Old Lady had a good commander and a brilliant engineer.

“Yeah,” Ted agreed. “But we’re still going to be in trouble if the aliens target the weakened parts of our hull.”

He shrugged. “Apart from that,” he said, “how do we stand?”

“We’ve kidnapped a few dozen yard dogs,” Fitzwilliam said. “I think one of them is planning to file charges when we return to the solar system.”

“I don’t blame him,” Ted said. Technically, the Royal Navy had the legal authority to pressgang whoever it needed to keep the ships running, but it had never been asserted before the war. The yard dogs would share the same fate as the naval officers, without any of the legal guarantees of protections and pensions for their families. “But as long as he does his duty here, we won’t worry about it.”

“The XO had a few words with them all,” Fitzwilliam said. “And I’ve made arrangements for their families too.”

He shrugged. “Most of them have families on the asteroids,” he added. “The remainder are being offered safer places to live.”

“Good thinking,” Ted said. “And the crew?”

“The old sweats are doing fine,” Fitzwilliam said. “But I do worry about the starfighter pilots, sir. They’re nowhere near as trained as the last batch — and they took terrifying losses.”

“I know,” Ted said. He shook his head, bitterly. “But what else can we do?”

“I also think the CAG is on the verge of burning out,” Fitzwilliam added. “I had a briefing with him two hours ago and… he seemed monumentally distracted. He’s seen far too many pilots die under his command.”

Ted couldn’t disagree. Fifty years of relative peace had ensured that the Royal Navy’s greatest losses came from accidents, not enemy action. A single death would have been cause for a full-scale enquiry into everyone involved, with careers suspended until the truth had been wrung out of them and new procedures had been put into place to prevent a repeat. But now… two carriers had been lost in the opening months of the war and it had only grown worse from then onwards. The Royal Navy alone had lost over thirty thousand personnel in just under a year.

He sighed. There had never been any shortage of volunteers for naval service, quite the opposite. Even a junior crewman could jump ahead of a civilian spacer if he did his ten years and then went into the private sector. But the Royal Navy had always been picky about who it selected to train as starfighter pilots, until now. The floodgates were opening, yet pilot training facilities had not been prepared for the sudden influx. It would be years before the situation changed.

“Keep an eye on him,” he ordered, finally. “And the rest of the crew?”

“Stressed, but determined,” Fitzwilliam said. “Moving their families helped, sir.”

“Good thinking on your part,” Ted reminded him. “And so we’re ready to leave.”

He keyed a switch, activating the starchart. Their planned route was far too close to the previous route they’d used to get into alien-held space, but there was no choice. The analysts had argued — and, for once, Ted agreed with them — that there was nowhere else they might have a reasonable hope of encountering Faction Two. Given the ambush the aliens had tried to spring, they’d concluded that Faction Two lay down one of the unexplored tramlines. Ted had privately noted that it was equally possible that Faction Two didn’t have the firepower to keep Faction One out of its space… if, of course, they weren’t misreading the data completely.

“We think there’s a life-bearing world here,” he said, pointing to one of the stars two jumps from Target One. “It’s as good a place as any to start.”

Fitzwilliam frowned. “It’s still chancy as hell,” he said, doubtfully. “But it has to be done.”

Ted understood his feelings. The alien navigational data might be completely unsecured, for all the humans knew, yet it was hard to pull any sense out of it. Certain points — the tramlines in particular — were easy to verify, others were much harder to comprehend. Did the aliens really mean life-bearing world by that particular icon or was it a warning to stay the hell away from that particular star system? The only way to find out was to go look.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It has to be done.”

He tapped a switch, altering the display to show the flotilla. Six warships — two escort carriers, four frigates — kept station with Ark Royal, while a colossal Fleet Auxiliary hung behind them, crammed with everything from missile warheads to boxed starfighters. The transport would remain under cloak at all times, Ted knew. They couldn’t risk losing her to alien fire, not when it would cost them far too much.

“They’re ready to go too,” he said. “We can leave on schedule.”

“And just keep the repairs going while we’re underway,” Fitzwilliam said. He rose. “With your permission, Admiral, I will prepare my ship for departure.”

“Please do,” Ted said. The words caused him a pang. He would never be commander of the Old Lady — or any other starship — again, no matter how long his career lasted. An Admiral had no business occupying a command deck. “I’ll be in the CIC in twenty minutes.”

He watched Fitzwilliam leave, then sighed. What would he do after the war? He wouldn’t be allowed to stay on Ark Royal, that was for sure; the carrier would still be a vital part of the Royal Navy. It was possible he could parley his military record into a high rank at the Admiralty, maybe even First Space Lord, although the thought of kissing political buttocks was repulsive to him. Or he could resign and write his memoirs.

It wouldn’t happen, he knew. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Shaking his head sadly, he finished his tea, rose to his feet and walked through the hatch.

There had been a time, James Fitzwilliam conceded, when he’d thought of Ark Royal’s bridge as crude, a memento of a bygone age. The Old Lady simply lacked the elegance of modern carriers, let alone the sheer consideration that had gone into designing her to look smart as well as efficient. But he’d come to love it over the months since he’d assumed, to feel that there could be no other command deck for him. It had a reassuring solidity that more modern carriers lacked.

But that could be because modern carriers can’t stand up to the aliens, he thought. They looked good, alright, but the aliens could blow them into flaming debris within seconds. We won’t be building carriers like that again.

He sighed inwardly as he took his seat and surveyed the main display. There were plans to build a whole new generation of armoured carriers and battleships, but it would still be years before the first ship left the shipyard and went to the front lines. Until then, Ark Royal was unique, utterly irreplaceable. And, if the Admiralty hadn’t been willing to gamble, she would probably have remained tied to Earth, defending humanity’s homeworld against the scum of the universe.

And would it have made a difference, he asked himself, if we had stayed in orbit around Earth?

He’d reviewed the records of the Battle of Earth. The main thrust of the alien attack had fallen on the planet’s fixed defences, but they’d managed to find time to devastate the unified carrier fleet in passing. Ark Royal might have made a difference — or she might just have been blown apart by alien laser warheads too. There was no way to know what would have happened if she’d been there. But he knew he would always ask himself if they’d made a mistake in haring off to attack Target One.

Angrily, he pushed the thought aside. Endlessly dwelling on the past was pointless. What was done was done. It could not be changed. All that mattered was adapting to the world as it was and then moving forward. There was no point in thinking otherwise.

“Commander Lightbridge,” he said. “Are we ready to depart?”

“Yes, Captain,” Lightbridge said. As always, he seemed remarkably cheerful. “Drives are online; all systems read nominal. We can depart on your command.”

Anderson needs a reward, James thought. And so do the people who designed the ship before she was built. All that damage and she’s still operational.

He looked down at the status display, then up at Lieutenant Annie Davidson. “Signal the Admiralty,” he ordered the communications officer. “Inform them that we are departing on schedule.”

“Aye, sir, Davidson said.

“And then signal the remainder of the flotilla,” James added. “Give them a countdown to our departure.”

He settled back in his chair, feeling the starship quivering around him. Anderson had tested and retested everything, but he’d expressed private concerns over some of the components they’d had to hastily repair or replace. The Old Lady was built for constant modification — her designers had assumed naval technology would continue to advance indefinitely — yet some of her older systems were completely incompatible with newer systems. Anderson had said it time and time again, hammering the point home. There had been no attempt to modify and modernise Ark Royal while she’d been floating in the Naval Reserve and they were paying for it now.

The ship quivered again, a feeling that echoed through his bones and then faded away into nothingness. He couldn’t help feeling a quiver himself, recalling just how blithely he’d turned down Uncle Winchester’s offer of a way out of the nightmare. He’d meant every word he’d said to the older man — he was damned if he was deserting Admiral Smith now — and yet part of him wondered if he’d made a mistake. But there was no going back now.

Maybe they’ll send the fleet out anyway, he thought, sourly. Whatever else happens, things are going to change for humanity.

He took a breath. “Bring the drives up to full power,” he ordered as the countdown reached zero. “And then take us towards the tramline.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lightbridge said. A low hum echoed through the ship, growing in power as the drives started to propel the Old Lady forward. “We are underway.”

“Prepare to launch the drones as soon as we cross the tramline,” James ordered the tactical officer. “Do it just like we practiced.”

“Aye, Captain,” Commander Keith Farley said. “The drones are ready for immediate launch.”

James nodded, feeling sweat trickling down his back. The aliens hadn’t tried to occupy Terra Nova, but they might well have pickets in the system, watching humanity’s starships as they moved towards the front lines. Ideally, the drones would pose as Ark Royal and her flotilla long enough for the fleet to slip away under cloak and then make its way towards the very edge of the Terra Nova system. Once there, away from any alien pickets, they would start advancing towards Target One.

Again, he thought, wryly. But will they have bothered to repair the defences and station war fleets in the system to meet us?

It was the old question, he knew. Just how many ships did the aliens have? There was no way to know, yet he suspected that if the ships Ark Royal had encountered during Operation Nelson had been assigned to the attack on Earth, Earth would have fallen. It suggested that the aliens either had publics that refused to allow home defence to be minimised or internal security problems of their own. Perhaps there were several alien groups and the one fighting humanity had to watch its back at the same time.

Are they watching the back doors into their space, he asked himself, or are they gathering their forces for one last try at Earth?

James had never considered himself a strategist. Uncle Winchester was the long-term thinker in the family. But he thought he understood the alien tactics. They’d devised a weapons mix they’d thought would be sufficient to overwhelm humanity — and they would have been right, if Ark Royal had been scrapped. Their advance through humanity’s star systems had been smooth, clearly intended to mop up resistance as they went along, rather than a blitzkrieg towards Earth. And then they’d been slapped back by Ark Royal and had been forced to reconsider their options.

And the bastards are alarmingly innovative, he thought, remembering the nightmarish moment when laser warheads had burned into his ship’s hull. Just like us.

“Captain,” Lightbridge said, breaking into his thoughts. “We are approaching the tramline.”

James nodded, feeling his gut twist uncomfortably. He would have preferred to sneak through the tramline to Terra Nova, but it had been unlikely that the aliens wouldn’t be watching the Old Lady and her fleet… if, of course, they had pickets in the Sol System. It was what James would have done, if he’d had the ships to spare — and as long as they remained stealthy, there was little fear of detection.

“War Hog is to jump,” he ordered. The frigate already had her orders. “And the remainder of the fleet is to go to tactical alert.”

Alarms howled through the giant carrier as, on the display, the icon representing the frigate crawled towards the tramline and vanished. It was unlikely, James knew, that the aliens were preparing an ambush. They probably didn’t have an entire fleet under cloak in the next system. But he knew better than to take anything for granted, not now. He silently counted down the seconds in his head until the icon snapped back into existence, seemingly untouched.

“Captain,” Davidson said, “local space is clear.”

James nodded, relieved. “Take us through,” he ordered. “And then launch the drones.”

He hated the moments when he couldn’t do anything, when all the orders were issued and all he could do was wait for them to be carried out, but there was nothing he could do about them. The carrier shivered as she passed through the tramline, then the lights automatically dimmed slightly as the cloaking device activated. As long as the aliens didn’t have a picket alarmingly close to the tramline, they shouldn’t have noticed the carrier cloaking. Her signature had been replaced by a drone.

“Drones are deployed, sir,” Farley reported. “Everything looks nominal.”

Unless the aliens attack the drones, James thought. They’d learn very quickly that nothing was remotely nominal about them.

“Send the drones off on their cruise,” he ordered. “And keep monitoring them for glitches.”

He rose to his feet and walked over to Farley’s console as the drones moved further and further away from the ship. Terra Nova hadn’t even tried to hail the fleet, even though the planet was within a few light minutes of the tramline. According to the last report, Terra Nova had gone underground, with all radio transmitters confiscated by the various governments. James rather doubted the governments had managed to secure all the transmitters, but it hardly mattered. The aliens knew perfectly well where Terra Nova was, if they wanted it. And the planet was effectively defenceless.

“The drones appear to be working perfectly,” Farley said, after ten minutes had passed. The display updated as the drones curved away from their mothership. “They’re starting their loop around the system now. They’ll return to the tramline in three days and go silent. It’ll look like they jumped out of the system.”

“Good,” James said. He returned to his command chair and sat. “Helm, take us towards the transfer point, under cloak. Be sure to keep a distance from any contact, no matter how weak.”

“Aye, sir,” Lightbridge said.

James settled back into his chair. It would take hours to reach the planned transfer point, then days to cross the alien-held system to the next tramline. Normally, starships sought out the least-time courses, but they were the easiest ones to predict and picket. The aliens would have their work cut out for them if they tried to picket all possible courses. They’d need thousands of ships or sensor platforms to make it workable.

Which won’t stop them leaving listening posts in a few sensible locations, James thought. That’s what we do, after all.

He keyed a switch. “All hands, this is the Captain,” he said. “We will remain under cloak, as planned, for the foreseeable future. I expect all of you to remember the silent running protocols.”

Closing the channel, he thought rapidly. The crew would be tense, he knew, but there was nothing he could do about that. There was something about being under cloak that made it harder for people to concentrate and left them whispering to one another, even though everyone knew sound didn’t travel through space. The XO would do her best to arrange activities for the crewmen, once they ran out of repair work to do; he hoped it would keep everyone distracted.

And stop our guests from complaining, he thought. The Ambassadors had taken their quarters in stride, but their aides had complained loudly. Perhaps they just hated the thought of having to share a cabin with their superiors. James, who had to share a cabin with his XO, found it hard to be sympathetic. And he was quite prepared to murder Uncle Winchester if he suggested that something untoward had developed between him and Commander Williams.

“Keep us on course,” he ordered, pulling up a tactical exercise. At least they had even more data on just what the aliens could do. But who knew what they’d kept hidden from humanity until it was too late? There was too much speculation and not enough hard facts. “Inform me the moment anything changes.”

Shaking his head, he activated the exercise and went to work.