The Trafalgar Gambit

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“This is quite a report, Captain,” the First Space Lord said.

“Thank you, sir,” James said. It had been a nightmarish trip from the alien homeworld — if it was their homeworld - to Earth, pushing the frigate’s drives to the limit. “Will you take action?”

“I will have to raise the issue at the Defence Council,” the First Space Lord said. He took a breath. “There will be reluctance to send any major forces away from Earth.”

James took a breath. “We don’t dare risk fighting them in the Sol System,” he snapped. “If they want to make Earth uninhabitable…”

The First Space Lord held up a hand. “I understand what’s at stake, Captain,” he said. “But it will be a joint decision.”

“Then blackmail the Russians,” James said. “We have evidence they tried to undermine — hell, destroy — any chance of a negotiated peace. They killed Royal Navy personnel and blackmailed others. Tell them we won’t seek revenge in exchange for their voting alongside us.”

“The Russians don’t have the clout they had before the war,” the First Space Lord pointed out. “Their vote might not be as much help as you’re suggesting.”

“Then send the remaining fleet alone,” James pressed. “Sir…”

“I will deal with the issue,” the First Space Lord said. “Now, I suggest you prepare for a major debriefing. I understand you made contact with the aliens…”

“We made contact with the Russian settlements in the asteroid belt,” Davidson said. The communications officer looked stressed. “They claim the aliens haven’t sent any additional ships into the system.”

Ted nodded, relieved. Either they’d beaten the aliens to the system or the aliens had decided to take the long way to Earth. Either way, humanity would have a chance.

“And the ships orbiting the planet itself?”

“They’ve just been watching and waiting,” Davidson said. “The Russians say the aliens haven’t even called in orbital strikes.”

“They probably don’t have any real interest in our settlements,” Ted guessed. “And they’ve shown no interest in us?”

“None,” Farley confirmed. “I think they must have detected our arrival, sir, but they haven’t left orbit to investigate.”

“Good,” Ted said. He looked over at Anderson. “How bad is it?”

“The Puller Drive is completely fucked, sir,” Anderson said. His voice was calm, too calm. “I believe the realspace drive will hold, for a while, but not for long. We really need a full refit…”

“Which we’re not going to get,” Ted said. Anderson hadn’t said ‘I told you so,’ but Ted was sure he’d thought it once or twice. It was hard to blame him. One way or the other, Ark Royal had come to the end of the line. “Concentrate on strengthening the hull and preparing for engagement.”

“Aye, sir,” Anderson said. “I have some ideas that might be costly in the long run, but will give us an advantage for the moment.”

“Then prepare them,” Ted said. “We will assume this is the last battle and ready everything for the fight.”

“Aye, sir,” Anderson said, again.

“Launch two of our remaining probes to watch the tramlines,” Ted ordered. “And then prepare to start Operation Deception. Dismissed.”

He watched them go, then sank back in his chair. For better or worse, Ark Royal could no longer leave the New Russia system, where she’d fought her second major engagement with the aliens. They were committed, now. Victory or death… but then, the War Faction felt the same way.

They were apt students, Ted thought, with a flicker of amusement. But then, so were we.

He rose to his feet and headed for the hatch. Operation Deception — the attempt to convince the aliens that Ark Royal had headed towards the tramline to Earth — would start in thirty minutes, allowing him barely enough time to tour his ship. It was tradition, after all, that the Captain would tour the ship before battle. Had he done it before? He couldn’t remember.

But we have to pretend to be a hole in space, he thought. The War Faction could not be allowed a chance to avoid engagement. They might want the carrier destroyed, but somehow he suspected they would prefer to head straight for Earth. Even with a fully-working drive, they would have been unable to catch the alien ships. We need to impale them on our weapons.

Sighing, he walked through the hatch and down the corridor towards the intership car. He would start with Main Engineering, followed by Tactical and then Sickbay. Doctor Hastings was already preparing for the casualties she would receive, although if the ship were to be destroyed, Ted knew, it would be pointless. But they had to hope for the best, even as they prepared for the worst.

And pray that God remembers us this day, he added silently, if that we forget him.

Nerves had rarely been a problem for Henry before, he had to admit — at least, not when it came to bearding people more powerful than himself in their lairs. Being a Prince tended to teach some lessons, starting with the simple fact that most people considered themselves more important than they really were. And besides, he wasn’t blind to the implications of losing the Puller Drive. Ark Royal was not going to leave the New Russia system unless a new drive unit could be brought to her… assuming she survived, of course.

He hesitated, then keyed the buzzer. There was a long pause before the hatch hissed open, revealing Rose sitting at her desk, half-asleep. Henry looked around for a bottle of alcohol before realising she was exhausted and depressed, not drunk. Shaking his head, he closed the hatch behind him and locked it, then strode over to face her.

“Wake up,” he snapped.

“Piss off,” Rose said, without moving. “Go do your damned job.”

“Go do yours,” Henry said. He hesitated, then walked around the desk and hauled her to her feet. “I understand you’re depressed, I understand you’re frustrated and pissed and everything else, but you have a goddamned job to do.”

He pushed her towards the washroom, exasperated. “You can either undress and shower yourself, or I’ll strip you naked and shove you into the water myself,” he added. “Your choice.”

“Bastard,” Rose said. She moved away when he reached for her uniform buckle. “I’ll go, I’ll go…”

Henry watched her go into the washroom, then sat back and waited for her to emerge. It was nearly twenty minutes before she came out, looking furious. Washing herself would have helped wash away the tiredness as well as everything else. Henry sighed inwardly and braced himself. Her being angry was a good thing.

“You have absolutely no right to treat me like a child,” Rose snapped. “I don’t believe you were promoted over my head!”

“I will be, if you keep acting like this,” Henry said. He understood how she was feeling, but there was no time for any form of compassionate leave. She should have been sent back to Earth with Captain Fitzwilliam. “Commander…”

He took a breath. “We are about to face the worst battle of our career,” he said, softly. “It could win or lose us the war. We simply don’t have time to fret about our missing loved ones” — he saw her start violently — “or anything else, but fighting and remaining alive. I will not allow you to decline into a wreck when there are pilots who desperately need your leadership.”

Rose glared at him. “Do you realise his death was my fault?”

Henry shrugged. Janelle hadn’t told him the full story. He’d suspected there was more, but he hadn’t wanted to put her in a position where she had to break a confidence or refuse to tell him something. If Rose blamed herself…

“Look,” he said. “Did you kill him personally?”

“They took him and he died and I could do nothing,” Rose snapped. “It was my fault he died.”

“I thought the same too, once,” Henry said. But it hadn’t been quite the same. Losing a dog, even a mutt that was effectively a member of the family, wasn’t anything like losing a lover. “Commander — Rose — when we get back to Earth, you can mourn him in any way you see fit. But now, we need you in the cockpit, ready to kick some alien ass.”

He slapped her on the back, hard enough to sting. “And besides, I think I crossed a line when I threatened to undress you,” he added. “You’ll need to assume your rank again just to hand out something sufficiently awful as punishment.”

Rose smirked. “Booting your ass out the airlock seems about right,” she said. Her smile faded quickly. “I’ve been a fool, Henry.”

“You should have seen me as a child,” Henry said. “I couldn’t get away with nothing.”

“A Royal Brat?” Rose asked.

“Worse than that,” Henry said. “When I was restrained they said I was a prig; when I threw tantrums, they talked about me being badly brought up. When I did something stupid they made fun of me; when I did something clever they said I must have been coached. When my father let me run wild he was spoiling me rotten; when he gave me a clip around the ear they screamed that he was abusing me. I’m sure there are worse things in life than being a prisoner of the media, but I haven’t met them.”

Rose smirked, again. “Being an alien prisoner?”

“Oh, no,” Henry assured her. “Being an alien prisoner was quite relaxing, actually. They didn’t have the slightest idea who I actually was.”

“Neither did I, until it was too late,” Rose said. She smiled, reluctantly. “Janelle Lopez is a very lucky girl.”

“I like to think so,” Henry said. He sobered. “We won’t be launching any starfighters because the Admiral wants to remain in hiding, but we do have simulations to run. Will you join us in twenty minutes?”

Rose sighed, then nodded. “I’ll get a cup of coffee and something to eat,” she said. “And…”

She broke off. But Henry understood the unspoken apology.

“If you need anything, afterwards, ask me,” he said. “There are places you can go where the media can’t follow, if you’re careful.”

“I may face a Board of Inquiry,” Rose said, as she stood. “No, I will have to face a Board of Inquiry. But I will have to come to terms with my involvement in the whole affair. There’s no point in trying to run.”

“I understand, I think,” Henry said. He rose, then walked towards the hatch. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

“We’ve been trying to find ways to board alien ships,” Parnell said, as Ted toured Marine Country. “But I don’t think they’ll let us do it again.”

Ted nodded in agreement. The first — and so far the last — successful boarding operation in outer space had been carried out by the marines attached to Ark Royal during her first mission. It had only worked, he suspected, because the aliens had never seriously considered the possibility. Normally, boarding a starship without the crew’s consent was tricky as hell — and the crew could blow their own ship, if they thought they were in serious danger of losing control. The aliens hadn’t rigged their own battlecruiser to self-destruct before it was too late.

But they won’t make the same mistake twice, Ted thought. They’d certainly tried to board Ark Royal, during Operation Nelson, but it hadn’t worked. They hadn’t tried again, which suggested they’d decided it was futile and given up. We’d just be sending Marines to their deaths.

“We are looking at ways to rig plasma cannons to assault shuttles and using them as a last line of defence, or even ramming units, but they won’t be a match for starfighters,” Parnell added. “They just don’t carry enough armour.”

“Something to work on in the future,” Ted said. Marine Assault Shuttles were tough, but nowhere near as tough as Ark Royal. “But set them on automatic. They might soak up some alien fire.”

“Aye, sir,” Parnell said. “I’ve assigned the rest of the Bootnecks to damage control duties, for the moment. They’ll armour up when the aliens arrive, then be ready to repel borders.”

“Just in case,” Ted agreed. They couldn’t take the alien reluctance to board human ships — in the wake of their failure — for granted. It was quite likely the aliens would consider the ancient carrier a prize worth taking. “And I think…”

He paused as his wristcom bleeped. “Admiral, this is Farley,” a voice said. “The probe is picking up starships crossing the tramline — multiple starships.”

Ted nodded. “Understood,” he said. It would be an hour, at the very least, before they could engage the enemy. “Get me a detailed breakdown of enemy forces as soon as you have it, Commander. I’ll be on the bridge in five minutes.”

He closed the channel, then looked up at Parnell. “It’s been a honour,” he said. “And thank you for everything.”

“It could be harder,” Parnell observed. “There are no friendly aliens mixed in with the hostiles here, are there?”

“No,” Ted said. The War Faction had splintered, according to the aliens, until the only ones left were the true fanatics. None of them would have second thoughts now. “Just aliens who want to kill us all.”

He nodded to the Marine, then strode out of Marine Country and walked — there was no point in running — up to the command deck. The crewmen he passed nodded to him — salutes were forbidden when the ship was at alert — and smiled, looking confident. Ted knew they’d inherited a tradition of victory, a tradition that had been earned after the Battle of New Russia. Spacers were superstitious and they knew Old Lady had never been defeated, not once. Ted hoped that would hold true one final time.

The bridge was a hive of activity when he stepped through the hatch and paused, studying the red icons on the display. Most of them were standard alien ships, including three carriers, but one of them was unknown… and larger than Ark Royal. It seemed to be slower too, he noted, as more and more data scrolled up on the display. The ship’s mass had to be comparable to the ancient carrier’s immense bulk.

“I think that’s a battleship,” Commander Williams said, quietly. “They must have decided to rush one into service after they ran into us.”

“Or maybe they had plans to turn on the other factions,” Ted offered. An armoured battleship… no, a dreadnaught, perhaps even a superdreadnaught, would be a formidable opponent against the other alien factions, even now the aliens had put bomb-pumped lasers into service. “If they’d known about the Old Lady, they wouldn’t have launched the war without some way to deal with her.”

“They could have started work on her after the first battle,” Commander Williams offered.

Ted shook his head. It had taken five years to build Ark Royal; even now, with the aliens breathing down their necks, the best the designers had managed to do was slim it down to three years. Perhaps a battleship would take less time, but he had his doubts. They’d have started with a completely new design and completed it impossibly quickly, if that was the case.

“Or they refitted a design they already had,” he mused. He dismissed the thought a moment later. “How many ships are we looking at?”

“Twenty-two,” Farley said. “Fourteen frigates, two cruisers, three carriers, one battlecruiser and one monster…”

“Designate her as the Monster class,” Ted ordered, calmly. It was a formidable force, easily enough to break through Earth’s defences and launch stealth missiles into the planet’s atmosphere. And, facing carriers that were lightly armoured, they might even cripple humanity’s remaining fleets beyond repair. “Time to intercept.”

“They’re moving along the projected course, at speed,” Farley said. “They’ll enter engagement range in fifty-seven minutes.”

Ted smiled, then walked over to his chair and sat down. “Continue feeding targeting data to the sensors,” he ordered. “The principle target are the carriers, not the superdreadnaught. I want them smashed as soon as we open fire.”

Commander Williams gave him an odd look. “You don’t want to target the superdreadnaught?”

“No,” Ted said. He hesitated, then explained. “The superdreadnaught doesn’t carry any starfighters, I assume. Without starfighters, she will be vulnerable to volley-fire from Earth’s defences, even if she smashes us into pulp. Even if her armour is as tough as ours, Commander, she will be vulnerable.”

He studied the display for a long moment. The aliens might be in a hurry, but they weren’t being too trusting. They had a CSP fanning out ahead of them, probing for trouble. It was quite likely they’d stumble across the waiting ambush before it was too late to save their fleet from instant annihilation.

“Take aim,” he ordered. “If they stumble across us, fire without waiting for orders.”

Farley swallowed, nervously “Aye, sir,” he said. “Weapons locked on target.”

Ted understood. A twitch on Farley’s part could start the battle early, sacrificing the advantage they’d risked everything to build. He understood far too well.

He keyed his console as the alien fleet grew closer, opening a channel to the entire ship. “All hands, this is the Admiral,” he said. “We are about to engage the enemy one final time. If we win, the war comes to an end. If we lose, the aliens will push past us and attack our homeworld. On us rests the fate of Earth — and all of humanity.”

There was a pause as he struggled for words, then fell back on the classics.

“Britain expects that every man will do his duty,” he said.

He closed the channel. On the display, the alien ships were drawing closer and closer, their starfighters fanning out ahead of them. It wouldn’t be long before they stumbled across the ambush and then all hell would break loose. But it had been long enough.

“Fire,” he ordered.