Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (24 page)

At least the captain didn't invite his subordinate captains to dinner
, she thought, as she stepped into the captain’s stateroom. 
And he left the midshipmen out of the invitation too
.

She honestly wasn't sure what to make of Prince Henry.  His service in the navy and his apparent death hadn't impressed her at the time, although she
did
have to admit he’d worked hard to keep his true identity a secret.  Indeed, it had only come out after he’d been reported missing in action.  And then, he’d gone off to serve as an ambassador, rather than stay on Earth.  She didn't know if she should be impressed - he could have enjoyed an easy life if he’d stayed - or suspicious.  For all she knew, a more competent ambassador was pushed aside to allow the prince to shine.

But they wouldn't play games with the ambassador to Tadpole Prime
, she thought. 
Even if the government was inclined to allow it, the other Great Powers would object
.

“I have wondered what the social scene on Tadpole Prime is like,” Captain Blake was saying, as she took her place at the table.  “Do you have many parties?”

Susan didn’t - quite - roll her eyes.  The rich or well-connected brats she recalled from her schooling had bragged about attending parties, about how their dresses had cost thousands of pounds apiece and how they’d been driven all the way to London from Hanover Towers just for a chance to dance with the aristocracy.  Maybe Prince Henry had been like that, once upon a time, but she rather doubted it.  He’d run all the way to the academy to escape the press.

“I’m afraid we have only a handful of entertainments,” the prince said, casually.  Too casually.  “There aren’t really enough of us for a proper social scene.”

He smiled.  “And my former title means nothing to a society that has representatives from nearly every spacefaring nation on Earth, still less the Tadpoles themselves,” he added, his voice lightening.  “They don’t have any concept of family lines.  It’s very rare for one of them to
know
who sired him.”

Susan hid her amusement with an effort.  “What do you make of them?”

“The Tadpoles?  It’s hard to say anything for sure,” Prince Henry said.  “There’s no real hope of getting agents to give us the inside scoop, as it were.  I think, in a few hundred years, we and they will share interlinked space, but rarely actually
talk
.”

He cleared his throat.  “But I was curious to ask about the war games,” he said.  “How did they go?”

“We proved the battleship concept,” Susan said, when it became clear Captain Blake was not going to answer.  “Well, at least we proved it in simulations.  But we still have a long way to go.”

“We tagged many American starfighters,” Captain Blake said.  “Covered ourselves from their attacks.”

Prince Henry winced.  He’d been a starfighter pilot, Susan recalled, a pilot who’d earned his wings when the Tadpoles were introducing the human race to plasma weapons.  Nearly a third of
every
starfighter pilot in the human sphere had died in the fighting, most of them picked off by rapid-fire plasma cannons.  And
Vanguard
mounted more of them than any war-era Tadpole starship.

“We could certainly win most of the battles of the war, if they were refought,” Susan said, feeling a twinge of sympathy.  “But we assume the Tadpoles have advanced too.  Do you know anything about their innovations?”

“We know they have several more superdreadnaughts,” Henry said.  “You’ve seen a couple in their fleet.  But we don’t know anything about their later innovations.  They’ve been mucking around with focused gravity beams, yet we don’t know if they’ve come up with anything workable.”

Susan frowned.  “Focused gravity beams?”

“A homemade tramline,” Henry said.  “Apparently, it’s
theoretically
possible.”

“That would change everything,” Captain Blake said.  For once, he sounded completely serious.  “If we were no longer bound by the tramlines ...”

“It would,” Henry agreed.  “If nothing else, it would open up a number of previously inaccessible stars.  But we don’t know if they’ve actually had any real success.  They certainly haven’t told us anything.”

Captain Blake leaned forward as the stewards entered.  “And you know this how?”

“Careful intelligence work, much of which is classified,” Henry said.  “And quite a few details are well above my level.”

Susan considered it, thoughtfully.  It was the Tadpoles who’d discovered ways to use tramlines humanity had dismissed as being too weak to allow a starship to jump from one star system to another.  If there was any race who could invent a workable FTL drive, it was the Tadpoles.  And yet, there
was
a tramline in place; they merely enhanced it.  It would be a great deal harder to craft one from nothing ...

The Holy Grail
, she thought. 
Everyone wants an FTL drive and an FTL communicator ...

“I think you’ll enjoy the food, Your Highness,” Captain Blake said.  Susan was almost grateful for the shift from the awkward topic.  “I had it brought specifically for diplomatic dinners.”

The Prince smiled.  “How did you know I’d be coming?”

“I didn't,” the captain said.  His lips twitched in amusement.  “I expected to host Admiral Boskone and his staff after the war games.”

“I see,” Prince Henry said.  His expression darkened.  “I hope everything goes peacefully, Captain, but if it doesn’t ...”

“You needn’t worry, Your Highness,” Captain Blake said.  The confidence in his voice was almost convincing.  “We’re ready for anything.”

Susan kept her peace, but she desperately hoped he was right.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Jump completed, Commander,” Reed reported.  “We have entered UXS-469.”

Susan nodded, feeling an odd shiver running down the back of her spine.  There was little of importance in UXS-469, but it linked directly to an alien star system ... had Admiral Smith and his crew felt the same way too, when they’d taken
Ark Royal
deep into Tadpole space to wage war?

We’re not here for war
, she told herself, firmly. 
We’re here to make peaceful contact with our new friends
.

But the shiver wouldn't go away.

She pushed the thought aside and studied the display as starship after starship blinked into existence.  Sixty-one human starships, including five fleet carriers; forty-one Tadpole starships, including three fleet carriers and five superdreadnaughts.  It was the single most powerful fleet to be deployed, ever; she had no doubt they could smash through both fleets if they were sent back in time to the First Interstellar War.  Coordinating the fleet was a major headache - she’d lost count of the number of soothing messages she’d had to send to various commanding officers - but it was still formidable.  If the newcomers wanted a fight, they’d rapidly find themselves in serious trouble.

“Long-range sensors are clear,” Charlotte reported.  “There’s no sign of any activity within the system.”

Susan scowled.  She’d argued - or, rather, primed the captain to argue - that the fleet should enter UXS-469 under cloak. 
She
wouldn't be too happy if she saw an immense fleet entering the Terra Nova System, a single jump from Earth, and she saw no reason to assume the aliens would disagree.  But Captain Blake had been overruled.  If the newcomers had no access to the tramlines, there was no point in keeping the fleet cloaked and, if they
did
, they’d probably be nervous if they detected a cloaked fleet.  Susan privately suspected the argument was nonsense, but there was no way she could push her point any harder.  The absence of starships, settlements and navigational beacons within UXS-469
did
suggest that the aliens either couldn't reach the system or considered it useless.

But there’s at least one other tramline that should be usable, if they could get here in the first place
, she thought. 
And it leads directly to Tadpole space.

“Keep us at tactical alert,” she ordered.  She had to bite down the impulse to issue orders to the screen, but Admiral Boskone held that authority.  “And make sure we remain linked to the fleet command network.”

“Aye, Commander,” Mason said.

Susan glanced down at her console as the fleet slowly advanced into the system, leaving the tramline behind.  They’d crawl to the other tramline, if they followed the plan, and then send scouts through before the contact ship made its own jump.  If the aliens were waiting on the other side, with bad intentions, the scouts would detect them before it was too late.  And yet, no one thought that was likely.  Guarding an entire tramline was beyond the capabilities of every human navy, working together.

“Orders from the flag,” Parkinson reported.  “The fleet is to advance along its planned course.”

Susan sucked in a breath.  Admiral Boskone and Admiral Pournelle didn't see any reason to delay, then.  She found it hard to blame them - a successful first contact would put both men in the record books - but she still felt inclined to be cautious.  Or perhaps it was the Tadpoles, insisting on an early first contact.  Given how badly they’d reacted to a botched first contact, they probably had good reason to want to establish friendly contact before there were any incidents.

And there were incidents on their homeworld that caused problems
, she thought, grimly. 
If we hadn't been talking to them, would we have had another war?

“Very well,” she said, slowly.  “Helm, take us away from the tramline as planned.”

She leaned back in the command chair, silently grateful the captain wasn't on the bridge.  The fleet surrounding
Vanguard
was powerful, enough firepower to cover a retreat if necessary, yet the nasty sensation at the back of her mind refused to go away.  Perhaps it was simple proximity to the alien tramline, perhaps it was just stress caused by her contingency planning ... but she still felt worried.  She hadn't felt so concerned since the tactical exercises she’d done at the academy, where her grade had depended on beating her fellow cadets ...

“Sensors,” she said.  “Are there no contacts at all?”

“Nothing apart from the fleet itself, Commander,” Charlotte assured her.  “We have every inch of space for light-seconds around the fleet under constant observation.  We’d know if a single atom of space dust was out of position.”

“Good,” Susan said.  She didn't feel any better, but there was nothing she could do about the sensation bothering her.  “Continue to monitor local space.”

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to relax.  There was no
evidence
that they weren't alone in UXS-469, there was nothing to suggest they were being watched ... and yet, the hairs on the back of her neck continued to prickle.  Maybe it was just psychometric ...

But we’ve taken all the precautions we can
, she thought, grimly. 
We’re ready for anything ...

***

“That’s a Tadpole fleet carrier,” Gunner Fitzroy Simpson said.  He was a short man, with a muscular body and a kindly face that reminded George of her first teacher.  “See if you can draw a bead on her.”

George nodded, angling the targeting system so the main gun was pointed directly at the Tadpole starship.  She wasn’t
quite
out of effective range, but the magnetic bottles that kept the superhot plasma in position would probably start to degrade before they struck the Tadpole starship’s hull.  No one was quite sure just how heavily the Tadpoles armoured their latest generation of fleet carriers, yet George was sure they’d know they’d been kissed.  The battleship’s plasma cannons were an order of magnitude more powerful than any the Tadpoles had been known to deploy themselves.

“I’m targeting her drives,” she said.  She rather liked the gunners, although they kept themselves to themselves when they weren't on duty.  “That should cripple her even if it doesn't destroy her.”

“Very good,” Simpson said.  He tapped another icon on the screen.  “And what do you make of
that
target?”

“Armoured superdreadnaught,” George said.  She closed her eyes as she recited from memory.  “Probably immune to long-range fire.”

“Probably,” Simpson agreed.  “We might scratch her hull, but burning through her armour would require a steady bombardment.”

George nodded.  She’d studied the final battle of the war, between
Ark Royal
and a Tadpole superdreadnaught, and she’d been struck by just how confident the Tadpoles had been that they could burn through the Old Lady’s armour before she rammed their ship.  But they’d underestimated the extra layers of armour that had been woven over the ancient carrier before committing themselves to a death ride. 
Vanguard
might have been able to kill
Ark Royal
before it was too late - the gunners were rather reluctant to discuss possibilities with her - but anything lesser would have died with the Old Lady. 

“They’ll have upgraded their weapons,” she said, slowly.  “Won’t they?”

“Probably,” Simpson said.  He didn't sound concerned, which surprised her.  “We keep updating our own weapons too.”

“That’s true,” another gunner said.  Peter Barton was only a year or two older than George, young enough that she’d caught him glancing at her once or twice when he thought she wasn't looking.  “Why, I’ve heard the boffins are coming up with a one-shot weapon that will blow a superdreadnaught into dust.”

“Let us hope not,” Simpson said, dryly.  “A weapon that can turn one of their ships into dust can easily do the same to ours.”

George nodded in agreement.  She’d heard rumours - everyone heard rumours - that Britain and every other spacefaring nation was throwing money into all kinds of advanced or unusual weapons programs.  There hadn't been anything concrete - half the rumours had been concepts stolen from various science-fantasy programs - but she was certain there was
some
truth to the rumours.  The human race couldn't afford to let the Tadpoles have a breakthrough that rendered the Royal Navy nothing more than scrap metal.

“We’d be back in the days of tin-can ships,” Simpson added.  “Cramped little pieces of metal, one-hit wonders.  And he who brought the most to a fight would win.”

“I saw one of those ships in London,” George recalled.  “They were tiny!”

She smiled at the memory.  Her mother, perhaps intent on keeping her from joining the navy, had taken her to the Imperial War Museum as soon as it reopened after the floods, where the family name had been enough to convince the curators to allow her to crawl around inside HMS
Victory
, the first true British warship.  She’d been ugly, nothing more than a handful of modules buckled around a plasma drive and her crew crammed into quarters that made middy country look huge, and yet she’d been truly fascinating.  But Simpson was right too.  A single warhead - a conventional warhead, rather than a nuke - would have been more than enough to vaporise the ship.

“My grandfather used to fly on them,” Simpson said.  “He said
we
have it easy.”

“We don’t have it easy,” Barton protested.  “Changing the plasma conduits is hard work.”

“Back then, if they sprang a leak, they were in deep shit,” Simpson said.  “And they didn't even have artificial gravity.  They floated around the ship and strapped themselves down when the time came to change course.”

“Might have been fun,” Barton insisted.  “You can do a
lot
in zero-gee.”

“They didn’t have muscle regenerators either,” Simpson pointed out.  “You spend a few months on one of those ships, you’ll be as weak as a kitten.”

George shivered.  The early fears that lunar colonists would be unable to return to the homeworld had proved unfounded, but muscle decay had proved a very real problem, forcing the colonists to exercise daily if they ever wanted to go back home.  There were a handful of asteroid colonies without gravity, where the inhabitants could fly around like birds ... at the cost of never being able to enter a gravity field again.  They’d looked inhuman, she recalled from her studies; so thin and delicate that she’d be afraid to
touch
one.  She had no doubt that humans belonged in space, but there was no need to strip the human race of its ability to live on a planet.

Simpson cleared his throat.  “That’s enough target practice for one day,” he said.  “Why don’t you and Peter inspect the tubes?”

“Yes, sir,” Barton said.

George carefully deactivated the console, then stepped back.  There wasn't any
real
prospect of accidentally opening fire on a nearby starship, she’d been assured, but caution had been drummed into her at the academy.  The turrets were designed to act on their own, if necessary, although she found it hard to imagine the ship taking so much damage the turrets couldn’t be controlled from the bridge.  What would happen, she wondered, if each of the eight turrets engaged eight different targets?

“This way,” Barton said.  “Coming?”

“Yep,” George said.

Barton pulled back a hatch, allowing them to climb into the tubes surrounding the gunnery station.  The temperature seemed warmer, although George had never been sure if it genuinely
was
hotter or if it was just the awareness that she was far too close to a dozen containment fields, each one holding enough superhot plasma to vaporise an entire section of the hull.  If there was a leak, she’d been told when she’d first started her work in the turret, she’d be vaporised so completely that no one would ever know she’d been there.

“We need to check the containment systems here,” Barton said.  “Make sure there’s nothing older than a couple of months.”