The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Thirty-One

“You know,” Rose said, “we should have a lockdown more often.”

Kurt snorted. The moment they’d heard the alarms, they’d jumped into Kurt’s office before the hatch sealed, trapping them in the compartment. Alone, they hadn’t wasted time; they’d stripped, made love and then dressed again before the alert could come to an end. It was in direct breach of the Admiral’s orders, but after so long he found it hard to care.

“I think we probably shouldn’t,” he said. There had been no call for starfighter pilots since they’d entered orbit, but he’d kept his crews on alert anyway. Who knew when the shit would hit the fan? “What happens if we come under attack now?”

Rose shrugged. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“No,” Kurt answered. But the sinking feeling in his chest suggested one possible answer, no matter how much he tried to avoid it. The Russians were finally making their move. “It could be anything…”

The hatch, which had been locked, hissed open. Kurt started, half-expecting to see Marines and a pissed-off Admiral, then stared as he saw two men wearing ill-fitting uniforms. One of them was pointing a gun at him; the other was carrying a large roll of duct tape. He stared, then climbed to his feet as one of the intruders motioned with the gun.

“Get over against the wall,” he ordered, in a thinly-accented voice. “Girl; lie down on the ground, face down. Put your hands behind your back.”

Kurt glared at him, but saw no alternative. As soon as he was away from Rose, the man with the duct tape knelt down and used the tape to tie her hands behind her. Moments later, he’d wrapped her ankles together, then used a final piece of tape to cover her mouth. Her angry eyes glared daggers at the man as he searched her, removed anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, then rolled her into the corner. She was so tightly wrapped she could barely move.

“You’re going to come with us,” the leader said. He met Kurt’s eyes. “And if you don’t cooperate, we’ll be forced to hurt your girlfriend.”

The blackmailers, Kurt thought, numbly. He offered no resistance as he was searched, then his hands bound behind his back with tape. One of the blackmailers pointed him towards the hatch, the other dropped a black object next to Rose and then checked the remainder of the office before following Kurt and his captor out into the corridor. Kurt wanted to ask what the object had been, but neither of the men looked communicative. He barely had a chance to throw Rose a helpless look before the hatch hissed closed, blocking his view of her angry face. She hated being helpless more than anything else.

I’m sorry, he thought.

Outside, there was a body lying on the deck. Kurt barely had time to realise that it had been stunned before the blackmailers pushed him down the corridor, heading for the starfighter launch bay. During lockdown, Kurt knew, it would be almost deserted apart from the starfighter pilots in the launch tubes. They wouldn’t be able to leave until the alert came to an end.

He braced himself, then opened his mouth. “What… what are you doing?”

“We’re getting off this ship,” one of the men said. The other one merely grunted, then elbowed Kurt in the back, hard. “And you’re going to help us launch a starfighter.”

Kurt stared at him. “Are you mad?”

“You can open the emergency hatch,” the man said. “And you will. Or your girlfriend will die and your reputation will be ruined.”

“You’re not with her,” Kurt said. “I…”

The man produced a small terminal. “We left a bomb next to her,” he said, darkly. “One push of this button” — he pointed — “will detonate it and she will die. I suggest you behave yourself and the two of you will come out alive.”

Kurt thought desperately as they stepped into the launch bay. They had to be mad… unless they really did intend to blow the emergency hatches. But opening them would require the Captain’s override codes and he doubted the blackmailers had them. And even if they did succeed, where would they go? The aliens were the only other force in the system. Had they been working for the aliens all along? Or had a stealthed warship followed them all the way from the solar system? It didn’t seem likely.

“There’s nowhere to go,” he pleaded. “You could surrender now and you’d live…”

“Be quiet,” the leader ordered. “Ah. Four empty Spitfires.”

Kurt followed his gaze. There were eight Spitfires in the launch tubes now, with pilots utterly aware of what was happening behind them. He wanted to do something, anything, but what could he do? There was nothing… he had no weapon, his hands were bound and they were trapped. All he could do was wait and pray the Marines arrived in time to save the day.

“Go to the switchboard,” the leader ordered. He removed something small and dark from his palm and passed it to his companion. “Open the emergency hatch.”

Kurt stared, just before the second blackmailer grabbed his ear and yanked him towards the switchboard. It wasn’t meant to be used at all, nothing more than a relic of the Old Lady’s early days, when they’d worried about the ship’s datanet being so badly damaged that starfighters would have to be launched and recovered manually. They couldn’t even use it without the Captain’s overrides. But the blackmailers didn’t seem to notice — or care. The leader climbed into the nearest Spitfire and started the engines.

“Do not do anything stupid,” the second blackmailer said, as he cut Kurt’s hands free, then pressed his palm against the sensor. The console unlocked. “Open the emergency hatch.”

“As you wish,” Kurt said. How had they managed to unlock the console? How had they managed to get the Captain’s overrides? It was vaguely possible they had something that could be used to access Russian-designed computer cores, but the system in front of him was British. Outdated, sure, but still secure. “If that’s what you want.”

He noted the position of the breath mask, then pushed hard down on the emergency hatch system. The blackmailers hadn’t realised, he saw, that the entire compartment would vent into space the moment the emergency hatches blew free. He grabbed for a mask a second later, then hung on for dear life as the atmosphere vented into open space. The second blackmailer grabbed for him, but Kurt kicked him in the face and watched him plummet helplessly out into space. He pressed the mask against his face, feeling it seal to his skin, then took a deep breath as the last of the atmosphere vanished. And then he turned, just in time to see the stolen starfighter vanish through the hatch.

Damn it, he thought, as gravity reasserted itself, His exposed skin started to hurt as the cold of space seeped in. What now?

Desperately, he ran over to the nearest starfighter and scrambled into the cockpit. There was a very welcome hiss as atmosphere flooded into the craft, allowing him to tear off the mask and reach for the communications system. God alone knew what had happened, but he needed to report back to the Marines and ask for instructions. He couldn’t help a surge of brutally-powerful guilt. Was all this the result of his dalliance with Rose?

He keyed the system, searching for a channel. But it was nearly five minutes before his call was patched through to the CIC — and then to the Admiral.

“Admiral,” he said. “The blackmailer took one of the starfighters.”

“Shit,” the Admiral said. There was a pause. “Can you get after him?”

“Yes,” Kurt said. He brought the starfighter’s drives and weapons up to full readiness. “But why…?”

The Admiral laughed, bitterly. “There’s a bioweapon on that ship, Commander,” he said, shortly. “They have to be stopped before it can be deployed.”

Kurt nodded, then triggered the starfighter’s engines and powered the craft through the hatch and out into space. The blackmailers had done a very good job of confusing everyone, he had to admit. It would be difficult to launch the ready starfighters or get the remaining pilots into space before the aliens reacted, perhaps assuming the humans intended to launch a sneak attack on their world. And yet… how did they plan to deploy the bioweapon? He recalled everything he’d seen or heard since the blackmailers had captured him, but there had been nothing to suggest they’d armed the starfighter with anything capable of deploying the bioweapon. The craft didn’t even carry any missiles…

“Admiral,” he said slowly, “how can he deploy the weapon?”

“They can drop into the planet’s atmosphere,” the Admiral said. “The damn thing might even survive a gentle re-entry.”

But they can’t fly into the atmosphere, Kurt thought. The starfighter would break up and fall to the surface if someone was idiotic enough to try. But if the pilot didn’t mind committing suicide, the bioweapon might just float down to the surface anyway… if it survived the heat of re-entry. Would it? Kurt recalled some accidents during the early days of spaceflight, where genetic material had made it down to the surface. The early days of science-fiction had included hundreds of diseases from outer space…

And there was no way to be sure the bioweapon wouldn’t survive the fall.

“Understood, Admiral,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

“We have all but one of the Russians accounted for, Admiral,” Parnell reported. “The last one was just killed attempting to break into the armoury.”

Ted nodded, shortly. “Good,” he said. “And Commander Labara?”

“We found her tied and gagged with duct tape, but she’s alive,” Parnell assured him. “They actually left a remote grenade beside her, probably to keep her quiet. We deactivated the device and threw it out into space.”

He paused. “She wants to speak with you, Admiral.”

“She’ll have to wait,” Ted said. He needed to speak with Rose Labara too, but later, when he’d had a chance to think through what had happened. “There’s too much to do.”

He sighed. Five Russians dead on Ark Royal, one more in custody, one blown into space and one on a starfighter heading towards the planet. One Russian agent who could still pull the whole thing off, if he got close enough to the world. In hindsight, it had been terrifyingly obvious what the Russians had in mind. But he’d been so horrified by the bioweapon’s mere existence, to say nothing of its prospective results, that he hadn’t even considered the possibility. Did the Russians intend to provoke an unwinnable war or were they intent on ending the war by exterminating the aliens completely?

The thought made him shudder. He’d come to view the aliens as intelligent beings in their own right. He would have felt the same way if he’d faced Russians or Chinese in combat, even though he would have fought them with the same effort he’d brought to fighting the aliens. Fighting them, defeating them in battle, was one thing, but committing genocide was quite another. There was no way he would have bombarded civilian populations…

And so it had been unthinkable that anyone would. He’d been so adamant that the aliens were alien, and had to be treated with great care, that he hadn’t been thinking about the Russians as anything other than fellow humans. And it had been a wise thing to think, particularly during Operation Nelson. He couldn’t afford to think of the foreign ships under his flag as anything but human.

But the Russians had been prepared to slaughter uncounted billions of aliens. He’d seen reports of endless skirmishes along the Russian southern borders, where civilisation broke down and tribal warfare was epidemic. The Russians had responded with staggering force, calling down targeted fire from orbit and blasting entire villages to rubble. Why would they not slaughter the aliens? They weren’t even human.

He turned his gaze to the status display. Repair crews were working frantically, but it would be hours before the Old Lady was ready to launch starfighters again. If the aliens attacked now, the carrier would be thoroughly screwed. So far, the aliens seemed bemused, rather than hostile. That would change, he knew, if they ever worked out what had actually happened… was still happening. There was nothing he could do, any longer, to influence events. All he could do was pray.

And watch, helplessly, as two starfighters battled for the future of humanity.

Peter spared a moment to think of Ivan as the starfighter raced towards the planet, sacrificing any form of stealth for speed. They had been friends and comrades for a long time, well before the aliens had made their presence felt. But now Ivan was dead… they’d always known they would die together, but it was still a shock.

He pushed the thought away as he watched the alien defences. So far, they hadn’t reacted to his presence, as far as he could tell. It was quite likely the aliens were monitoring events closely, unsure of just how best to respond. If they waited long enough, he told himself firmly, they’d lose everything before they made up their minds what to do. And even if they didn’t… he remembered the briefing papers and smiled. It was quite possible the aliens would smash his starfighter and the bioweapon would still survive. Unless the designers had been blowing smoke again, he knew…

They used to promise us the superman, he thought, feeling an odd calmness settling over his mind now he knew he was going to die. And how many men died, mutilated savagely, before they mastered enhancements?

He pushed the thought aside as the console sounded an alert. Someone was on his tail.

The blackmailer was a pilot, Kurt noted, but he was not an experienced pilot. Spitfires had quite a bit in common with Russian-designed Grigorovich starfighters, yet there were some modifications that had been added to the later generations of Spitfires the blackmailer didn’t seem to know existed. For one thing, it was possible to boost the drive if the pilot didn’t mind the risk of burning out his compensators. Kurt pushed his drives as hard as he dared, knowing he had to catch up with the enemy before it was too late.

He sucked in a breath as the alien world came into view, a blue orb hanging against the infinite darkness of space. It was astonishing just how little land surface there was on the planet, most of it subject to truly horrible weather. The aliens, utterly unconcerned about the mainland, probably didn’t care about the rain. Or thunder and lightning…

The starfighter ahead of him lunged forward, then altered course lightly. Kurt recognised it as an attempt to hit the atmosphere at an angle, the only — theoretical — way a starfighter could enter the atmosphere safely. But it wouldn’t be easy to actually land on the water, let alone the mainland. Kurt cursed and removed the safeties from his weapons, then locked onto the starfighter and opened fire. There could be no risk of allowing the starfighter, even as a piece of wreckage, to enter the planet’s atmosphere.

He frowned as the blackmailer spun the craft through a crazy series of loops, then came up shooting.. Kurt evaded with ease, but he could tell that the enemy pilot was determined to go through with his mad plan. As soon as Kurt had altered course enough to throw off his aim, the pilot had altered course and started to move back towards the planet. And every time he did it, Kurt suspected, he’d get closer and closer to his goal. Completing his mission would be much simpler if he didn’t intend to survive afterwards.

And he didn’t dare risk blowing up the enemy starfighter in the planet’s atmosphere…

This is all my fault, he thought, and drove the starfighter forward. One hand reached for containment chamber controls and started to remove the safeguards, one by one. I’m sorry…

“Admiral,” he said. “Please tell my children — and everyone else — that I love them.”

He cursed under his breath as he closed the channel. There had been no time to say goodbye to Rose. She’d have to make do with the letter he’d written for her and stored in his private database. Penny and Percy would have their own letters; he hoped — prayed — that the Captain would take care of them, even after Kurt’s death. And Molly… where was Molly now? Dead… or in the arms of someone who could make her happy? Oddly, he felt no hatred or anger any longer, not now he was about to die. She deserved what happiness she could find in life.

I’m sorry, he thought, and rammed the starfighter forward.

Peter watched, grimly, as the enemy starfighter closed in. The pilot was no longer firing, which was odd… and worrying. If the starfighter had been blown to rubble, there was a possibility the bioweapon would survive. But if the pilot wasn’t shooting any longer… it suggested he knew what he was dealing with. Did he have another way to deal with the bioweapon?

He swung his starfighter around, then gasped in horror as the enemy flyer roared towards him at terrifying speed. An experienced pilot might have managed to evade, but by the time he yanked his starfighter away it was already too late.

You can ram if you like, he thought, in the last seconds. The bioweapon might survive…

Kurt timed it perfectly. The containment chambers, already overloading, exploded microseconds before his starfighter crashed into the enemy starfighter. There was a blaze of light and heat, then nothing.

And both starfighters were utterly vaporised by the blast.