Ark Royal (32 page)

And longer, if I can swing it
, he thought, inwardly.  As XO, it was his duty to supervise the repair work, check the revised duty rosters and generally take as much of the burden of day-to-day administration as possible upon himself.  If he was lucky, that should take more than just one day ... and it was all urgent.  Some of it, he knew, could be reasonably put aside until they returned to friendly space, but the rest was quite important.  The reporters might have to wait several days for an interview.

He wondered, absently, what they’d thought of the battle.  Despite the battering the carrier’s weapons and sensors had taken, there hadn't been much actual
evidence
of combat apart from the view on the display.  If even hardened naval officers could become detached from the realities of space combat, what might happen to reporters who didn't really comprehend what they were seeing.  No doubt their reports, when they were finally filed, would consist of nothing more than poorly-written nonsense.  They’d probably been disappointed when their consoles had failed to explode.

The hours ticked past, one by one.  James watched the aliens warily, but they refused to move or do anything other than just wait by the tramline.  Were they more patient than humans, as a general rule, or simply too unimaginative to do anything other than follow orders?  But wouldn't that mean that their superiors had imaginations?  The Royal Navy taught its officers to use their best judgement, taking the initiative wherever possible, yet other space navies had different ideas.  James had watched a Russian exercise from a distance and he'd been struck by how little freedom the Russian junior officers had, compared to their British counterparts.

Puzzling over it, he brought up the recordings of the battle and went through them, piece by piece.  The analysts were already working on the records, but he wanted to see the raw data.  It was clear, he decided, that the aliens were preparing their next operation, although there was no way to deduce the target.  But
Ark Royal
had shocked them badly.  They’d be wiser to reconsider whatever attack plan they’d had in mind.

But what
did
they have in mind?

Human tactical doctrine called for pushing the attack as hard as possible, right into the teeth of enemy fortifications.  If the human race lost its industrial base, defeat was certain, all the more so as no one had any idea where the aliens were located.  A deep-strike mission couldn't be mounted without a target, unless they were prepared to spend months – if not years – exploring stars almost at random.  But the aliens ... they’d hit a handful of small colonies, then New Russia, then they’d launched a probing attack that had been smacked back ...

He shook his head.  Had
Ark Royal
shocked them so badly that they'd call a halt, long enough to reconsider their tactics?

Pushing the thought out of his mind, he called Midshipwomen Lopez.  “Make sure the Captain gets something to eat,” he ordered.  The entire crew needed food as well as rest; he’d already had food distributed to crews at their stations, even though it was technically against regulations.  But then, the bureaucrats had never imagined having to fight for more than a few brief hours.  Hell, they probably hadn't imagined ever having to fight at all.  “And then get some sleep yourself.”

“Aye, sir,” the young woman said.

Two hours later, when the Captain returned to the bridge, he looked refreshed.  James allowed himself a moment of relief, then gratefully headed back to his cabin.  He needed sleep too – and some time to think.  One conclusion was inescapable.  They had exchanged one trap for another. 

And, unless the aliens got very careless, there was little hope of escape.

***

Kurt felt thick-headed as he opened his eyes and glanced up at the timer.  Six hours.  Six hours of sleep in a sleep machine.  He could have scored six hours of natural sleep and woken up feeling better, if still rather shattered by the experience.  Annoyed, he opened the hatch and sat upright, silently grateful that he hadn't bothered to dress before climbing into the sleep machine.  He’d have to put himself on report later, he knew, but it made it easier to climb back into the shower.  A quick check revealed that the aliens hadn't come anywhere near them while he’d been resting in enforced sleep.

Shaking his head, he finished washing himself, pulled on a robe and made his way down to his office.  The list of slain pilots was waiting for him, demanding immediate attention.  As CAG, it was his duty to write a brief note to their next-of-kin, telling them how and why their relatives had died.  But it was a duty he couldn't bring himself to handle, not now.  Instead, he called up the pilot rosters and rapidly reworked the squadrons.  The bomber pilots would have to be permanently assigned to fighters, he decided.  There was no reason to keep them in reserve if their normal craft couldn't be deployed against the aliens.

He looked up as the hatch opened, revealing Rose.  She managed to look disgustingly alert, he noticed, as she stepped through the hatch and sat down on the spare chair.  The dressing gown clung to her body in a number of enticing places ... embarrassed, he looked away.  He was almost old enough to be her father.

“They’re still out there,” she said, quietly.  “They could find us at any moment.”

Kurt nodded.  He would have preferred to be flying against the enemy or even running away, not drifting through space praying that the aliens wouldn't notice them.  But he knew there was no real alternative.  If the aliens realised where they were, they would bring overwhelming force to bear against
Ark Royal
.  The carrier would fight hard, but she would be eventually overwhelmed.

“You did well,” Rose added, rising to her feet.  “Very well.”

She tugged at her belt.  It fell free, allowing the dressing gown to fall open.  Kurt stared, hypnotised by the sight of her breasts bobbing free.  Her pink nipples seemed to twitch, demanding his attention.  Suddenly, it was very hard to breathe.

A hundred objections ran through his mind.  He was a married man – but it was unlikely he would ever see his wife and children again.  He was old enough to be her father – and yet she'd chosen him.  He was ... her hands tugged at his robe, pulling it right open.  Somehow, almost of their own volition, his hands reached for her breasts, then slipped down to her buttocks.  All objections fled as he pulled her closer to him, feeling his penis already standing to attention ...

Afterwards, he couldn't help feeling regret, even a little guilty.  He had betrayed Molly, broken the wedding vows that he’d made in good faith.  Their relationship might be dented, yet it was not gone.  But he knew what had driven Rose, just as it had driven him to accept her offer.  The desire not to die without feeling a fellow human’s touch, one last time.

He looked up at the display and shivered.  The alien ships were still there.

Waiting.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“We could probably get to the asteroids,” Charles said.  “We’re experienced in such matters.”

The XO shook his head.  Three days of drifting in space hadn't convinced the aliens that
Ark Royal
was dead.  Their ships remained on the tramline to New Russia, watching and waiting for the humans to show themselves.  And, in the meantime, the stress was starting to take its toll on the crew.

“Too risky,” he said, finally.  “We can’t risk detection.”

“Understood,” Charles said, ruefully.  Mining asteroids wasn't something his men had signed up to do, but it would make a break from assisting with repairs and watching the reporters like hawks.  God knew that the reporters were still trying to make their way into secure compartments, despite being told – time and time again – that they were not allowed to enter without permission and an escort.  “But we will have to mine the asteroids sooner or later.”

He nodded to the XO, then headed back to the barracks.  Inside, he saw a handful of Marines wrestling and two more trying to catch up on their sleep.  Rolling his eyes, he barked for quiet and issued orders.  Another counter-boarding drill would keep his men out of mischief for a few hours.  After that ...

Better here than on New Russia
, he thought.  He’d gone through the sensor records carefully, but he had no idea if the Russians had made it to the surface or now.  Instead, all he could do was pray that they’d made it – and that their fellow countrymen were prepared to meet them.

Shaking his head, he started to organise the drill.  Everything else would have to wait until they returned home – or the aliens caught up with them again.

***

“There are only two known tramlines in this system,” Ted said, studying the display.  “Four more, if the assumptions about alien capabilities are accurate.”

There was no disagreement from his senior crew.  Barong – the crew were already muttering that the star should have been named Boring – was uninteresting, only really useful in times of peace, when a convoy could shave a few hours off the voyage to Vera Cruz.  The Russians might have been able to stake a claim in later years, or perhaps someone would set up an independent trading facility and try to charge passage fees for anyone making their way through the system.  They’d have to be careful, Ted knew.  It wasn't as if Barong was important enough to force people to pay.  They could simply detour around the system if necessary.

“Going back to New Russia would be extremely dangerous,” Ted added.  “They will certainly have ramped up their sensor networks – and there are those ships patrolling the edge of the tramline.  We may well jump straight into a trap.  This time, they’ll be ready for us – and we are already short on starfighters and projectiles.”

He looked over at Anderson, who shrugged.  “Unless the first survey of this system was rushed – and there is some evidence to suggest it was – there’s no hope of finding materials we can use to make additional nukes,” he said.  “The asteroids appear to be bog-standard pieces of rock and metal, not rare elements.”

“Pity,” Fitzwilliam observed.  “We taught them respect for our weapons, didn't we?”

“Yes,” Ted said.  “But that will make them all the more determined to prevent us from returning to human space.”

He wondered, idly, if
Ark Royal
was the only starship carrying the modified weapons.  It didn't seem likely.  The Admiralty might well have outfitted other ships with the weapons – if there was one thing humanity had in abundance, it was nukes – and if the aliens launched another attack, they’d get a nasty surprise.  But the aliens would still be hopping mad over the attack on New Russia.

“I have decided, therefore, that we will proceed down the tramline to Vera Cruz,” he added.  “From there, we will jump into unexplored space and work our way around to a point where we can return to human space.”

“Captain,” Fitzwilliam said slowly, “that will add several months to our travel time – at best.”

“It will,” Ted agreed.  It was the XO’s job to play devil’s advocate, no matter how annoying it could be.  “However, does anyone feel that we have a realistic chance of sneaking back into the New Russia system without being detected?”

There was a long pause.  No one spoke.

“Our orders are to return home and report in,” Ted continued.  “However, right now, taking the direct route home is a form of suicide.  Therefore, we will take the long route home – and, in addition, worry the aliens by probing the edge of their space.”

He smiled at their reactions, then explained his reasoning.  The attack on New Russia made sense, the attack on Vera Cruz and the other colonies did not.  Logically, the aliens should have saved their strength ... unless there was a strong reason to remove the human presence on those worlds.  The only answer that made sense to him was that the aliens had colony worlds within one or two jumps of Vera Cruz.

They might have encountered one of our survey ships
, he thought.  Survey ships set out for years at a time, rarely heading home early unless they discovered something truly spectacular.  No one would notice if one of the ships was several years overdue, allowing the aliens plenty of time to dissect her and her crew.  And they would have no trouble pulling a complete astronomical chart of the human sphere from her computers.

The thought made him scowl.  Whatever the outcome of the war, procedures would have to be carefully revised in the face of First Contact.  The survey ships would have to be escorted, their computers would need to be rigged for immediate destruction if another alien contact went bad and their crews would have to be outfitted with suicide implants.  It would probably take years to devise the new protocols.  God knew the first set, as inadequate as they were, had taken almost a decade of scrabbling before there was a version all of the interstellar powers could accept.

“We might run into stronger alien forces,” Fitzwilliam pointed out, finally.  “They might well try to trap us.”

“They might,” Ted agreed.  “The alternative is staying here, in hiding.  Unless someone’s invented a much better FTL drive ...?”

He smiled, then looked around the compartment.  “Barring discovery, we will power up our drives two days from now and start inching towards the tramline,” he continued, bringing up the main display.  “Should the aliens catch wind of us, we will throw caution to the winds and flee for Vera Cruz.”

“If they do,” Anderson observed, “they will almost certainly run us down.”

Ted nodded.  No matter how hard
Ark Royal
and her escorts struggled, the faster alien ships and their starfighters definitely would overtake her if it came down to a straight chase.  Ideally, he wanted to get to the tramline without being detected at all.  But it might not be possible ...