The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Twenty-Three

“All right,” James said, as he took his command chair. “What do we have?”

“Incoming enemy starfighters,” Farley said. Red icons appeared on the display, so close together that they threatened to blur into a shapeless mass. “I count nineteen of them, perhaps more. They’re flying in very close formation.”

“Prepare to launch ready starfighters,” James ordered. He glanced at the link to the CIC, but Admiral Smith hadn’t linked in yet. “And stand by point defence.”

He gritted his teeth as a nasty thought struck him. “Get a line down to the diplomats,” he added. Once, they had been able to assume that all alien contacts were hostile. They couldn’t do that now. “Ask them to talk to the aliens and confirm the newcomers are hostile.”

“Aye, sir,” Davidson said.

James nodded, then glanced at the display. Nineteen starfighters… so where was their carrier? Long-range sensors showed nothing. The carrier could be under stealth, but it would still have to be somewhere close by… unless, of course, the aliens had managed to extend their endurance. But there were hard limits, even for them.

“Enemy starfighters are reducing speed,” Farley said, suddenly. “They’re angling away from us.”

James frowned. What the hell were they doing? If they’d hoped to get into attack range before he managed to launch his remaining starfighters — which was the only tactic he thought made sense — they should be charging in to attack, not angling away. Or had they suddenly changed their mind for some reason? It would be unlike the aliens, but they had to have taken a beating in the recent battles too.

“CAG reports all starfighters ready to launch,” Davidson reported. “The diplomats have not yet replied.”

“Tell them it’s urgent,” James snarled. Diplomats! They could talk all day about non-essentials before approaching the really serious matters. But he didn’t have time for arguments over the shape of the conference table or how many assistants and aides each ambassador would be allowed. “We need an answer before the newcomers enter engagement range.”

He cursed under his breath. Standing pre-war orders forbade him to open fire until the enemy opened fire or if he had a very good reason to believe there was an immediate threat to his command. It was easier to patch up a diplomatic misunderstanding if there were no casualties on either side. Now, he had clearance to engage the aliens wherever he found them, but good reason to think he should exercise a little caution. They were already at war with one alien faction. The others should be kept neutral, at the very least.

“Captain,” Farley said, softly. “The CAG is requesting orders.”

“Launch two squadrons of starfighters, then move the CSP into intercept position,” James ordered. He would almost have been happier with a swarm of enemy starfighters bearing down on his ship. At least he would have had good reason to assume hostile intent. “And hold the remaining starfighters at readiness.”

The red icons flickered in and out of existence as they moved around the edge of the flotilla’s sensor perimeter. James frowned, wondering if the aliens were just trying to force the humans to exhaust themselves. He couldn’t ignore the enemy starfighters, but he couldn’t deploy too many of his own away from the ship. It could all be a costly diversion. Having his pilots flying constantly would drain them as surely as anything else.

“Launch four ballistic probes, backtracked along the alien course,” he ordered. “If there is a carrier out there, I want to find it.”

“Aye, sir,” Farley said. There was a long pause as he worked his console. “Probes deployed, sir; I say again, probes deployed.”

“Good, James said.

He nodded, tersely. Sensor stealth and even cloaking devices had their weaknesses. If the alien carrier was doing anything other than pretending to be a hole in space there was a very good chance the probes would pick up at least a sniff of its location. And then… he scowled as he realised the diplomats had still not replied to his messages. There was no way to know if the enemy starfighters were friendly, neutral or actively hostile. The only evidence he had that pointed to anything other than hostility was the simple fact they were holding outside attack range rather than closing in to engage the carrier.

“The diplomats say the aliens insist the starfighters aren’t theirs,” Davidson said, suddenly. “They’re hostile.”

“Good to know,” James said, dryly. The War Faction had shown its willingness to kill members of other factions before. Humanity would regard that as an act of war, but the aliens seemed to think differently. Or, he wondered inwardly, perhaps they had problems understanding the other factions. “Warn all starfighters that they are cleared to engage, if the aliens enter attack range.”

Long minutes ticked by. The aliens held their position, neither moving closer nor moving away. James had never been a starfighter pilot — his family had flatly forbidden him to attempt to enter the Academy — but he was familiar with their logistic requirements. It was a rare starfighter that could handle more than an hour or two of flying time without needing its life support packs replaced. The alien starfighters seemed to have similar limitations.

So why aren’t they attacking? He asked himself. Or doing something other than poking at the edge of our sensor network?

“Launch a recon shell of drones,” he ordered, slowly. It was possible the aliens were trying to divert his attention from something else, sneaking up on the other side of the flotilla. Or, perhaps, that the Peace Faction’s starship was a Trojan Horse. “I want to know if anything is trying to sneak up behind us.”

The Admiral’s face appeared in the display. James felt his eyes narrow in concern. The Admiral looked haggard, utterly exhausted. It wasn’t uncommon for Admiral Smith to work long hours and not get enough sleep — James had known him long enough to be certain there were fewer more dedicated officers in the Royal Navy — but they couldn’t afford it. He made a mental note to suggest the Admiral return to bed, then leaned forward. There was no way the Admiral would go to bed now.

“Admiral,” he said. “The aliens appear to be trying to make us jumpy.”

“And succeeding magnificently,” Admiral Smith said. “Tactical analysis?”

“They’re trying to wear us down,” James said, bluntly. “By now, they must have a pretty good idea of the limits of our technology.”

“And starfighter designs,” the Admiral agreed. “They’ll have captured some models at New Russia, if nowhere else. Withhold the remaining starfighter squadrons for the nonce, I think.”

“Aye, Admiral,” James said. “But we’ll have to rotate the CSP back through the ship in” — he checked his display — “twenty minutes.”

“Which raises the question,” the Admiral mused. “Do they know that we will have reduced fighter coverage then or have they just managed to get lucky?”

James frowned. There might have been spies on Ark Royal — he was grimly aware he didn’t have enough Marines to cover them all — but it was unlikely in the extreme that any of the spies were working for the aliens. It was hard enough communicating with a faction of aliens that actually wanted to talk. Somehow, he found it hard to imagine the aliens successfully comprehending the value of human sexual indiscretions and then using one such incident as a blackmail tool. Unless they’d found a human traitor… an Arnold, a Petain, a Witherspoon…

But there was another option.

“They could have spies on the Peace Faction’s ship,” he said, slowly. “Or maybe they’ve just been shadowing us since the first battle and have just decided to up the tension a little.”

“It’s a possibility,” the Admiral said. “Polly thinks it’s unlikely — the aliens are a consensual species, apparently — but we have to bear the possibility in mind.”

Polly, James thought, with some private amusement. He’d nagged Uncle Winchester to find Admiral Smith a bride — the aristocracy had survived by co-opting commoners with remarkable talents or well-earned fame — but maybe it wouldn’t be necessary. But then, Polly MacDonald was young enough to be the Admiral’s daughter. It was unlikely the Admiral saw her as anything other than a substitute child. Come to think of it, he’d treated many of his younger crewmen as sons and daughters too.

He pushed the thought aside as nothing more than a pointless distraction. “They will have had time to alert their superiors that we made contact with the Peace Faction,” he said, instead. “They might be trying to force us to compromise ourselves in front of the other factions.”

“It looks that way,” the Admiral agreed. “Order your pilots to hold the line, Captain. There’s no way we can do anything else until they close in to attack.”

“Aye, sir,” James said. “Assuming they do, of course.”

He sighed. No military force could remain at full alert indefinitely, no matter what the politicians and armchair admirals thought. Given near-constant alerts, his crews would start to be worn down until they were falling asleep at their consoles. If he knew, beyond a doubt, that the aliens weren’t going to attack, he would have sent half of his crew back to bed. But there was no way he could take it for granted.

“And they’ll know precisely where we intend to pass through the next tramline,” he said. There were two more jumps between their current position and the alien-selected destination and they knew nothing about the next system. The War Faction could be plotting an ambush and there would be no way to be sure until they jumped through the tramline. “They could use that against us.”

“Yes,” the Admiral agreed, flatly. “We have to get rid of our unwanted shadows.”

“And find their carrier,” James agreed. He looked down at the display. The drones hadn’t found anything, which worried him. Either the alien starfighters had radically extended endurance or the aliens had managed to improve their terrifyingly good stealth systems still further. Neither one boded well for the war. “It could be far too close to us for comfort.”

“Unless they’ve built an escort carrier design of their own,” the Admiral suggested. “That could be why they launched so few starfighters at us.”

James sucked in his breath sharply. The Admiral was right. If the aliens had copied one human idea, why couldn’t they copy others? They’d lost enough carriers in the war to be dangerously short of launching platforms… he hoped. The alien diplomats had refused to go into hard details about just how much firepower the War Faction had at its disposal. He couldn’t blame them, as the negotiations might break down violently, but it was irritating.

They’d want an escort carrier design for the same reason we wanted one, he thought. Additional starfighter launching platforms.

He contemplated it as the alien icons moved in and out of sensor range. Escort carriers were nothing more than modified freighters, with a launching bay and additional life support shoehorned into the design. If they hadn’t been so modular, rebuilding them would have been a major headache for the shipyards. As it was, they were fragile ships, barely able to stand up to a glancing blow from alien weapons. But then, a hail of plasma fire could burn a fleet of modern carriers to debris.

And if they’re feeling the pinch too, he told himself, they might have sent an escort carrier out here as a diversion.

“I think we need to rotate crews, Admiral,” he said. He paused. “And you should get some sleep.”

“So should you,” the Admiral said. He looked irked. James guessed that Janelle had been nagging him to sleep too. It was her job, although it took considerable bravery to tell an Admiral when he was doing something stupid. “I’ll sleep when things settle down.”

“Captain,” Farley said suddenly, “the drones are showing no further alien starfighters beyond the force we already detected.”

“Interesting,” James mused.

He studied the display for a long moment. He’d wondered if the aliens were trying to deceive him into believing they’d only launched a couple of squadrons of starfighters, while keeping the remainder of their force just out of sensor range, but it seemed otherwise. The upper estimate for how many starfighters there were in the alien force was twenty-five. Intelligence’s best guess for how many starfighters an alien carrier could launch was one hundred, a fair match for humanity’s modern carriers. And that suggested there was no full-sized fleet carrier within the system, just an escort… unless, of course, the aliens were playing games. He hadn’t launched his full complement of fighters either.

He took a breath. “Launch a third squadron of starfighters, then cycle the CSP back through the landing bay,” he ordered. There was still time on their life support packs, but he wanted to run them through replenishment as quickly as possible. “Once they’re ready to launch, hold them in the bay.”

“Aye, sir,” Farley said.

James turned his attention back to the Admiral. “With your permission, Admiral, I intend to step down the alert to the point we can send some of the crews to bed,” he said. “We should be able to see an attack coming in time to get the remaining starfighters launched and bring the ship back to full alert.”

“Wait until the CSP has been replenished,” the Admiral said. “That would be the worst moment for them to launch an attack.”

James had his doubts. He had thirty-six starfighters covering the flotilla already, with two more squadrons ready to launch at a moment’s notice. The aliens were badly outnumbered — and they had to know it. And that meant they should be reluctant to do anything that would bring them up against superior force. But if they were willing to fire on their own people, he asked himself, would they be willing to attack even when they were hopelessly outgunned?

“Admiral,” he said slowly, keying the channel so only the two of them could hear, “if we knew the Russians were escorting an alien flotilla though their territory, would we consider attacking it anyway?”

The Admiral frowned. “Probably not,” he said. “But it would depend on just how badly the Russians were skirting the treaties.”

James nodded. There were treaties governing humanity’s wars, with the most important one being a ban on fighting within the Sol System itself, but no one really expected the treaties to last for long if two major interstellar powers went to war. Back when it had seemed likely America would go to war with China, if he recalled correctly, there had been a great deal of debate over just what the Royal Navy should do if either of the nations used British-controlled tramlines. And that had assumed the Royal Navy didn’t join the Americans in war.

But if the Russians were escorting an alien fleet through their space… how would the rest of the human race react? Was it a form of armed neutrality or deliberate treason against humanity? If the War Faction’s monomaniacal approach to the war led them to view the other alien factions as treasonous, would they see themselves justified in attacking the other factions? There was no way to know.

We’d see it as treason, he thought, morbidly. We’d react very badly to a human nation aiding the aliens we saw as deadly enemies. And the aliens aren’t even capable of responding to different ideas, or even the concept we might not be beyond salvation…

“I think we must assume the War Faction will attack the other factions,” he said, slowly. “An alien civil war might be at hand.”

“That would depend on just how much firepower the disparate alien factions control,” the Admiral pointed out. “It could be a very short civil war.”

“If the War Faction controls all the ships,” James agreed. “We might have to defend the other alien factions against their enemies.”

“With only a handful of ships,” the Admiral said. “And we need to lose our shadows as quickly as possible.”

He paused. “I think I’ve had an idea,” he added. “But it will have to wait long enough for the aliens to get bored themselves.”

“Understood, Admiral,” James said. “All we can do now is wait.”

He settled back in his command chair and watched, grimly, as the CSP returned to the landing bay. Somewhat to his surprise, the alien starfighters made no attempt to lunge towards the carrier and attack. Instead, they just watched, dancing at the very edge of sensor range. They were distracting, he had to admit, but he was damned if he was allowing them to distract him too far. If someone was trying to sneak up on them…

“Stand down one third of the crew,” he ordered, once the CSP had completed its replenishment cycle. “Tell them to get some rest in the sleep machines, if available.”

“Aye, sir,” Commander Williams said. “But if we have to wake them early…”

“I know,” James said. Sleep machines worked well — very well. But if someone happened to be woken up too early they’d have terrible headaches. “If worst comes to worst, we will leave them in the machines until they complete their cycle.”

“Aye, sir,” Commander Williams said, again. “And will you be resting too?”

James shook his head. “Not yet,” he said, firmly. He would have to pass the bridge to her sooner or later, perhaps while having a quick nap himself in his office. But he wasn’t going to do that until the Admiral’s plan was ready to go. “Catch a nap yourself, if you can. You’ll have to take command soon enough.”

He told himself to relax, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been a naval officer long enough to know just how quickly a situation could move from controllable to utterly disastrous — and the aliens were deliberately trying to wear the crew down. It suggested they had more in mind than merely annoying the human flotilla…

… And he wanted to be ready for it when they finally sprang their surprise.