The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Twenty

Henry held Janelle tightly, feeling her heartbeat thumping against his chest.

“You should have told me who you were,” she said. “I could have handled it.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said. If they’d believed him dead… she would have had her life turned upside down. He cursed himself, angrily. “Do you hate me now?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Janelle said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to be normal,” Henry said. He hesitated, then half-pulled her into a private compartment. Long habits of avoiding the media had taught him to seek privacy whenever and wherever he could. “And I wanted to have a normal relationship too.”

He rubbed his cheek where she’d slapped him. In all honestly, he knew he’d deserved it — and worse. The Admiral had been right. Making love to someone outside Sin City risked that person’s future, no matter who or what she was. He’d been a selfish bastard, guided by his prick… and the fact he actually liked her made it worse. He really should have known better.

You did know better, his conscience pointed out. You just didn’t care.

“You could have had one with me anyway,” Janelle snapped. “I thought you were dead and…”

She broke off as he hugged her again. “I’m sorry,” Henry said, and meant it. “I…”

“Have a lot of explaining to do,” Janelle said. She pushed him into a chair, then marched over to a food dispenser. “And apparently you have to do some eating too.”

She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. “I thought you were dead,” she said. “Everyone thought you were dead. What happened?”

“I ejected from my fighter moments before it blew,” Henry said. He’d wondered why no one had thought he might be alive, but if they’d known the plasma chambers had been about to explode they might have thought he was certainly dead. “The aliens picked me up and took me to one of their worlds.”

“How nice of them,” Janelle said. She produced a plate of stew from the dispenser and passed it to him, followed by a mug of hot tea. “I think you’d better eat before you go to the briefing.”

Henry smiled as he smelled the stew. It wasn’t much — naval rations rarely were — but compared to the tasteless food the aliens had fed them it was delicious. The tea was just as good, sweetened the way he liked it. His mother would have a fit if she saw how he’d forgotten the endless etiquette lessons she’d drummed into his head, but he found it hard to care. He practically inhaled the food and drink.

Janelle sat facing him, her dark eyes anxious. Henry felt another twinge of guilt and silently cursed himself under his breath. She had to have her doubts about him now, both because he’d hidden his identity from her and because he’d seemingly died, leaving her at the mercy of the media. Henry had no doubt at all of what the media would do to someone as newsworthy as his lover. She’d have her life dissected, anything interesting or scandalous would be broadcast to the world and she would never have a private moment again. And it was all his fault.

He searched for words, but none came. He’d acted badly, worse than badly. It would have been more honest to exploit her or even to enter into a loveless relationship. Instead, they’d both cared about one another — and that was the worst of it. They couldn’t simply let go.

“They asked if I was pregnant,” Janelle said, suddenly. “They thought I might be carrying your child.”

Henry swallowed. It was impossible, he knew. Like all crewmen, he had a contraceptive implant — and besides, the Admiralty would never have let her return to space if she’d been pregnant. Technically, it counted as rendering one’s self unfit for duty. But in her case… they might have skipped the court martial. The child would have been of Royal Blood.

He felt another pang. If she had been pregnant, it would definitely have ruined her life.

“They do that,” he said, shortly. Thank God the media was largely banned from Sin City — and that he’d been Charles Augustus, while he’d been there. “It’s part of my life.”

“I understand,” Janelle said. She took a breath. “I mean I understand you.”

She met his eyes. “I do understand why you concealed your identity,” she said. “But I don’t know if I forgive you for it. It was bad enough mourning your death.”

The worst of all possible worlds, Henry thought. Janelle would have been mourning him, their relationship ended by his death… and yet she would still have been wrapped up in the affairs of the Royal Family. She would be nothing to them, completely valueless, and yet she would never have been able to escape.

“I understand,” he said. “And if you don’t want to see me again…”

Saying the words cost him more than he cared to admit. Janelle had liked him for him, not for being born a powerless prince, someone in line to be the figurehead of the British Government. They’d become friends and then lovers without the Royal Family casting a long shadow over their relationship. But, in the end, he understood. Anyone who joined the Royal Family, even if they were terrible gold diggers, bit off more than they could chew.

“We could go elsewhere,” he said. There was precedent — and besides, they’d already adapted well to his supposed death. He wondered, absently, if he could convince the Admiral not to name him on the report, before deciding it was impossible. “Take up residence on Britannia or even one of the other worlds…”

“You’d be giving up everything,” Janelle pointed out. “Your family, your life…”

Henry shrugged. He loved his parents and sister, but he hated what the monarchy had made them become. They were actors who could never really stop acting, out of fear the audience would lose interest and go away. Or, perhaps, men and women under constant observation, knowing all too well that anything they did would be used in evidence against them. There were criminals under less strict monitoring than the Royal Family.

And he’d never felt freer than when he’d been Charles Augustus, a simple starfighter pilot without ties to anyone of importance. He’d been chewed out at the Academy and loved it, put in a starfighter cockpit and told to risk his own life… he was better off, he knew, without the monarchy. And there was no force that could keep him in Buckingham Palace if he chose to leave.

“I’d be making a new life,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

Janelle hesitated. “I’ll think about it,” she said. She rubbed the table gently. “but it will have to wait until the end of the war.”

Henry nodded. The war wasn’t over yet.

He returned his plate and mug to the dispenser, then reached for her and gave her another hug. She hugged him back, gently, but there was a curious reserve in her eyes. Henry fretted for a long moment, then realised she’d already mourned him once. Part of her had to wonder, even if she never admitted it to herself, if he would leave her again.

But it was an accident, he told himself, angrily. I didn’t mean to lose control of my containment chambers…

Janelle let go of him, then led him through the corridors towards the briefing room. Everyone they met seemed to stop and stare at him; rumour, it seemed, had spread through the ship faster than the speed of light. Henry cringed inwardly as a number of crewmen saluted, even though they had no obligation to salute a simple Flying Officer. It was clear he would never have a chance to live a normal life on Ark Royal, not now. And it was unlikely he’d be assigned to another carrier.

“The BBN did a special on your life,” Janelle muttered, as they passed through a set of airlocks. “Someone on the ship told them about us. I don’t know who.”

“We’ll find out,” Henry promised. The thought of horsewhipping the bastard was delightful. There was always someone ready to betray the royals for thirty pieces of silver or, more practically, twenty minutes of fame. “What did the special have to say?”

“It said you were very patriotic,” Janelle said. “They made a big deal out of you giving up your title to fight beside the common man.”

Henry sighed. The PR staff at Buckingham Palace had wanted him to go into the navy publically, without using a false identity. They’d been more fixated on the idea of being able to prove the Royal Family was sharing the risks faced by common-born pilots, officers and crewmen than on whatever suited Henry personally. Using a false name made it impossible to claim Henry was taking risks. But if he had used his real name, he wouldn’t have been assigned to a front-line squadron.

Or they would have treated me like a Prince, he thought, bitterly.

He came to attention as the airlock opened, revealing the conference room. Admiral Smith rose to his feet to greet them, followed by two officers and a civilian Henry didn’t recognise. There was no sign of the Captain, he noted, which made a great deal of sense. If Henry had been brainwashed into killing the Admiral, Captain Fitzwilliam would take over command of the flotilla. But he hadn’t been brainwashed…

Oh, really? Part of his mind asked. And how would you know?

“Admiral,” he said, saluting. “Thank you for coming here.”

Admiral Smith returned the salute. “It’s clear that your country owes you a massive debt,” he said, simply. “You said the war was a mistake, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said. Prince or not, he was damned if he was allowing his military formality to slip now. “A tragic accident.”

He took the seat the Admiral offered to him — Janelle sat next to him — and braced himself. “It’s difficult to be entirely sure of what they’re telling us or vice versa,” he said. “But Jill — the girl who came with me — was a witness to First Contact. The Heinlein Colonists, sir, settled a world the aliens had already settled. But neither side realised it until they ran into one another by accident.”

“They prefer to live under the water,” the civilian said. “I assume the aliens didn’t send any ships to their colony prior to First Contact.”

Henry blinked at her. She wore shorts and a halter top that were so tight he could see her nipples, almost as if she’d had her clothes painted on. He forced himself to look away, suddenly very aware of Janelle’s presence beside him. He’d spent weeks, perhaps months, with Jill, he told himself. It should be easy to avoid staring at a very out of place civilian.

“One of the aliens encountered a pair of humans in shallow waters,” Henry said. “The humans panicked, assuming the newcomer was an undiscovered sea monster, and shot the alien. Their report wasn’t believed until the aliens attacked the colony in retaliation. Most of the colonists died in the ensuring battle, but a handful of prisoners were distributed among various alien factions. Jill… thinks she might be the only one still alive.”

The Admiral winced. “The aliens didn’t do anything to mark their colony?”

“Not as far as Jill knew,” Henry said. “The planet appeared deserted when the Heinlein Colonists arrived.”

“Odd,” the Admiral said. “Even our newly-settled worlds have at least one satellite in orbit.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “But would the aliens need them while they’re building an underwater colony?”

There might have been other signs the colonists had overlooked, he knew. The aliens had presumably introduced plants and animals from their homeworld to Heinlein — and their biochemistry wouldn’t have matched the local biology. But there had been no reason to run any tests, not if the colonists had believed the planet to be completely undiscovered. All they’d really had to do was ensure the local biochemistry was compatible with humanity or make sure their people knew not to eat it.

“So they believed us to be hostile,” the Admiral said, “and struck first?”

“One of the alien factions believed that to be the case,” Henry said. “The other aliens call them the War Faction. Sir… the aliens don’t think like us. I don’t think the War Faction is capable of considering any alternatives. They’re… I think they build up their factions around ideology and political concepts. They don’t tend to let in other ideas.”

“How very human,” the Admiral observed.

“It’s more like a datanet chat forum,” Henry said. “I think. They chatter and chatter until the group only consists of aliens who agree with the group, with everyone else excluded from the consensus and sent off to find another group. My guess, sir, is that this worked reasonably well when they were all on one world. But when they went into space, the factions effectively became echo chambers. There was no room for new ideas.”

“Like some of the asteroid colonies,” Janelle said, suddenly. “My Grandfather’s colony was based around a specific religious group.”

“That would make sense,” the civilian said, slowly. “The alien prisoners might be trying to convince each other of their respective ideologies, then sulking when they don’t get anywhere. They’re just saying the same thing over and over again.”

Henry nodded. Humanity had been moving towards a cultural union, some claimed, when space travel and interstellar settlement had become commonplace. These days, there were worlds that attempted to build and maintain a national character — or a religious harmony — that had never really existed on Earth. There had always been ideas creeping in from outside the cultural consensus. But an isolated settlement might be able to maintain a cultural stasis that would endure for thousands of years.

He shivered, remembering some of the debates over religious-themed asteroids. Was it right to allow disparate groups to settle their own asteroids, keeping their people isolated from any outside influences? And then there had been the inevitable accusations of racism and attacks on religious liberty…

“So the War Faction determined we were a threat and took steps to deal with us,” the Admiral mused. “And the other factions did… what?”

Henry hesitated. “I think, sir, that the other factions were partly convinced,” he said. “We might not be too happy if the situation was reversed and they landed on one of our worlds. But once the war started going badly — and we didn’t act like monsters — the other factions started having second thoughts. They wanted to at least try to talk to us.”

“Good God,” the Admiral said. “And the War Faction tried to stop them — twice, now.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said.

The civilian leaned forward. “I’m going to have to go through everything you saw very carefully, Your Highness,” she said. “Hopefully, we can actually talk to the aliens you brought with you.”

“They’re Ambassadors,” Henry said. Or he thought they were. The concept hadn’t been easy to discuss. “But I’m not entirely sure which factions they represent.”

“I assume they didn’t show you anything militarily useful,” the Admiral stated.

“No,” Henry confirmed. The aliens hadn’t shown him anything he could use against them, except — perhaps — what he’d learned of their culture. “I have no idea where they held us — or even how long it was since the battle.”

“Two months,” the Admiral said.

Henry shook his head in disbelief. It had felt longer. Much longer.

The Admiral cleared his throat. “We also need to move from this location,” he added. “By now, the aliens on Target One will be aware of our presence. They will probably start screaming for help.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I believe the aliens will accompany us, if necessary.”

The Admiral looked down at the table. “I’d prefer to head further into alien space,” he said. slowly. “I don’t think anyone would thank us for bringing an alien ship home.”

“They did on your first mission,” Henry pointed out. But there was something odd about the way the Admiral spoke, as if he was contemplating something he didn’t want to think about. “But I think the aliens will be happy to escort you elsewhere.”

“No doubt,” the civilian said. “I believe the other factions will be just as monomaniacal as the War Faction, just focused on different issues. A faction that wants peace will be quite likely to do whatever it takes to get peace.”

Henry considered it, briefly. There were no shortage of diplomats who were willing to make whatever concessions seemed necessary to get the other side to sign on the dotted line, even though the concessions were dangerously one-sided. Diplomats hated to admit they’d failed, even when their negotiating partners were intractable. But he hadn’t seen that sort of insane single-mindedness from his captors, although he had to admit it was hard to be sure. The aliens hadn’t tried to actually negotiate with him.

Will they offer us concessions to keep us talking to them, he asked himself, or will they demand them from us to satisfy the other factions?

“Let us hope so,” the Admiral said. He looked at Henry. “Janelle will escort you to your new quarters, Your Highness. I’m afraid I can’t put you back on the flight roster right now.”

“No, sir,” Henry said, reluctantly. It had been foolish, but part of him had dared to hope he could pass the diplomacy to the Admiral and return to a cockpit. “Will I be able to speak to some of the other flyers?”

“Not all survived,” Janelle said, very quietly. “Most of the pilots you knew were transferred elsewhere, in the wake of the Battle of Earth.”

Henry started. “They attacked Earth?”

“Yes,” the Admiral said. “And that will make peace negotiations very difficult.”