The Trafalgar Gambit (Ark Royal) (19 page)

This was a bloody stupid decision
, he thought, morbidly.  But he still couldn't see any workable alternative, save drafting pilots from the remaining home defence squadrons. 
And most of these pilots are going to end up dead when we first face the aliens
.

“Get some rest,” he ordered, “then we will have a proper debriefing session and go through each and every one of your mistakes.  In particular, you might want to think about the simple fact that there is no ‘I’ in ‘team.’  You are
part
of a team and if you can't
act
as part of a team, you’ll be put on the benches and flogged.  Dismissed!”

He watched them sidle out the room and sighed, bitterly.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to flog pilots,” Rose said, as soon as the compartment was empty.  “There are regulations against making yourself or someone else unfit for military service.”

“It’s amazing what regulations permit, if you look at them in the right way,” Kurt said, shortly.  Rose was the last person he wanted to speak to at the moment.  “It’s semi-legal to put someone in an airlock and threaten to decompress it to teach them a lesson.”

Rose snorted, then strode over to the hatch and locked it.  “We need to talk,” she said, turning to face him.  She rested her hands on her hips as she glared.  “What is wrong with you?”

Kurt started.  “Wrong with me?”

“You’ve been moping around like a depressed donkey for the last week,” Rose snapped.  “I think I’ve been doing a shitload of your work in getting those incompetents ready for battle and cleaning up their messes.  You’ve barely been present at training sessions that don’t involve you personally and ...”

She took a breath.  “And you declined my advances over several days,” she added, her voice softening.  “Kurt ... what is wrong with you?”

Kurt stared down at his hands.  He wanted to tell her ... and yet he didn't dare.  But that, his conscience prodded, was a cowardly attitude.  Her career was at stake too.  Hell, for all he knew, the people who were blackmailing him had also made advances to her, although that would have been harder.  He’d been the only one to leave the ship and go to Luna City.  In hindsight ...

His blood ran cold.  In hindsight, how had the blackmailers
known
he was going to go to Luna City?

Rose took his hands and guided him towards a chair, then pushed him into it.  His mind blurred, part of him remembering him kneeling before her and taking him in her mouth, part of him recognising her concern as friendly, rather than sexual.  He wanted to cry, to lose control completely and start screaming at the bulkheads, but somehow he held himself under control.  She didn't deserve to watch him come apart at the seams.

“Kurt,” Rose said, quietly.  “What happened on Luna?”

Kurt swallowed, then decided to be honest.  “I was ambushed,” he said.  “And blackmailed.”

Rose’s eyes suddenly went very hard.  “Blackmailed with what?”

“Us,” Kurt said.  “Our relationship.  They said they’d tell the entire universe if I didn't do as they said.”

Rose stood upright, letting go of his hands.  “Shit,” she said, as she started to pace the compartment.  “What else did they say?”

Kurt ran through the whole story from start to finish, then put his head in his hands.  It was over.  He’d ruined her life as well as his own.  God knew it would have been smarter to desert and take her with him.  Or perhaps ...

“They say they have proof,” Rose said, slowly.  “What proof do they have?”

“Footage of us ... making love,” Kurt said.  “They must have been spying on us for quite some time.”

“Or maybe they got lucky,” Rose said.  “Where was the footage taken?”

Kurt hesitated, trying to place it.  He should have studied it more carefully when Fred had waved it under his nose, instead of trying to recoil in horror and denial.  If he’d taken the terminal and its compromising recording for himself ... he thought hard, trying to recall the details.  It had looked like a hotel room ...

“The hotel we went to in Sin City,” he said, finally.  “I think ...”

Rose snorted.  “Such footage can be faked,” she said, snidely.  “How many times did you go to Sin City as a young man and fuck the latest entertainment star in a VR environment?  I believe that fucking Princess Elizabeth is quite common among some of the younger generation of pilots.  They just plug in the right simulation and fuck away.”

“The footage would be perfect,” Kurt reminded her.  “They’d have everything just right, from your breast size to my hairy chest.”

“My breasts are a matter of public record,” Rose sneered.  “I had to be measured for the flight suit, remember?  Given sufficient access, it would be easy to come up with footage that would be practically perfect in every way.”

She walked back over to him and patted his shoulder.  “It might seem bad,” she said, “but it isn't a total disaster.”

“It is,” Kurt said.  “The allegations will trigger another investigation, just like the one into Prince Henry’s death.  They will uncover time we spent together, more than could reasonably be justified.  And then they will put us on the stand and ask us if we were in a relationship ...”

“We’re also heroes,” Rose said.  She snorted.  “Ok; they find out proof we’ve been fucking during our off-duty hours.  They try to charge us with breaking regulations.  The public crucify them.  They’d be much smarter to ask us both to resign with honour and bury the entire scandal under the rug.”

“I wish I shared your optimism,” Kurt said.  “The evidence could also make it suggest the regulations were bent for us.  That would
also
be a political headache.”

He sighed.  The British Aristocracy had learned, the hard way, just how dangerous favouritism – or even the appearance of favouritism – could be.  Kurt and Rose might not be aristocrats, but they
were
heroes – and the appearance of letting them off lightly because of their heroism could cause the government a whole series of problems.  It was a toss-up if the government would let them resign gracefully, throw them out on their ears or send them to a work crew in the worst-hit parts of the country.

“Let’s go through this,” Rose said.  “Someone is trying to blackmail you.  What do they want?”

She went on before he could say a word.  “They don’t want money,” she continued, “or they would have demanded it before you left Earth.”

“I don't have much,” Kurt said.  “And money is practically worthless right now.”

“So whatever they want,” Rose said, “is more likely to be a major headache.  Did they give you any specific orders?”

“Merely that I would receive a message,” Kurt said.  “And that when I received the message, I was to go to the observation blister and ... see who met me there.”

“That means they have someone on the ship,” Rose said, slowly.  “Did they realise we were fucking during Operation Nelson – or earlier?”

“Or the newcomer is part of the ambassadorial party,” Kurt said.  It hadn't occurred to him that someone on
Ark Royal
had betrayed them.  It should have, he knew. 
Someone
had ratted out Prince Henry and Janelle Lopez, after all.  “And whoever it is has a great deal of access in places that are meant to be secure.”

Rose sat down next to him.  “So we have ... three options,” she said, after a moment.  “They’re reporters, they’re someone involved with the government or they’re interstellar spies.”

She frowned.  “Reporters aren't big on delayed gratification,” she added.  “And besides, blackmail could open them up to all manner of interesting criminal charges.  You and they might end up sharing the same cell.  That leaves a government conspiracy or international spies.  I’d lean towards the latter.”

“But if they were in the government,” Kurt objected, “they could make sure we were both jailed ...”

“They also wouldn't need to resort to blackmail to force you to do what they wanted,” Rose countered.  “If they’re the government, why bother with blackmail when they could just issue orders?  You’re not the Admiral.  I don’t think they’d need something out of a Z-List Evil Government Conspiracy Theory Movie to get you to do whatever they wanted.”

She paused.  “And that suggests international involvement.  But for what?”

“They knew I was going to Luna City,” Kurt said.  “How would they know that without having access to the naval datanet?”

“There’s no shortage of international officers at the Academy,” Rose reminded him.  “And where
else
could you go for a short leave?”

Kurt frowned.  She was right.  There had been no shuttles to Earth, Sin City was closed and anywhere else would have consumed half of his leave time just getting there and back.  Luna City was the only logical destination.  And, given access to the city’s public access datanet, the blackmailers could probably have tracked him right up to the moment he entered the cafe and sat down.  Fred might even have been hard on his heels.

“And there was a possibility you’d be summoned elsewhere too,” Rose added.  “Weren’t you on the list of people to attend a conference on countering alien starfighter tactics.”

“I was uninvited,” Kurt said.  “Too much work to do here.”

Rose wrapped her arm around his shoulder.  “You have to go to the Admiral,” she said.  “
We
have to go to the Admiral.”

Kurt stared at her.  “But ...”

“This is an international spy mission being carried out under his nose,” Rose said, flatly.  “If you keep quiet about it, you’ll probably wind up carrying the blame for the whole affair – assuming, of course, that we survive.  And if that happens, you and I will be lucky not to be put up against a bulkhead and shot.  But if we help the Admiral catch the spies, we will be able to request a honourable discharge as a reward.”

“Your career will be destroyed,” Kurt said.  He cursed himself under his breath.  “Rose ...”

“Shut up,” Rose said.  “I’m a big girl.  I made the decision to fuck you because I believed we would die soon and I didn't want to die without feeling some human contact.  If we’d stopped it then, it would probably have been fine.  You could have gone back to your wife and I could have found someone nearer my own age.  Instead ... we developed feelings for each other.”

She poked him with her finger, making him wince.  “You’re not a rapist,” she said, “and I am not a helpless victim.  We got ourselves into this mess and we’re damn well going to do whatever it takes to get out of it with our skins and reputations intact.  And if that means baring everything for the Admiral ... well, we can do it.  We don’t have a choice.”

Kurt shook his head, slowly.  She was right, he knew, and if it had been just him at risk, he would have done so without a second thought.  But his children were also at risk.

“And what will happen to them,” Rose asked when he said that out loud, “if they discover their father is branded a traitor?  Because that’s what will happen if you surrender to blackmail and do as they tell you.”

She stood up, then pulled him to his feet.  “Kurt, I know how you feel,” she said.  “But you can't let fear blind you, even if it’s for your children.”

Kurt sighed and leaned into her embrace.  “How can you be so cold about this?”

“One of us has to be,” Rose said.  She sighed.  “You’re the one who taught me to consider a situation and evaluate it thoroughly if there’s no need to act immediately.  And this situation needs to be considered carefully.  They think they have you by the balls – and they’re right.  That's what’s stopping you from thinking properly.”

She gently pushed him away from her, then straightened.  “Get yourself cleaned up in the head,” she ordered.  “And then we will go see the Admiral.”

Kurt nodded, cursing himself once again.  Perhaps they could have escaped notice completely if they’d broken off the affair after their first return to Earth.  He was fairly sure there were at least three other couples who’d had an affair, then been separated by being assigned to different ships.  But
he
had been stupid.  No matter the problem with Molly, no matter the growing awareness that he and his wife were slipping and sliding towards divorce, he could have prevented himself from having an affair with a subordinate.  There was always Sin City and its endless chains of brothels.