A Savage War Of Peace (Ark Royal Book 5) (27 page)

“Not a friendly man then,” Hamish said.  “What are you going to write about the riot?”

“I’ve already written a short article and uploaded it to the next courier boat,” Penny said.  “I just told them the truth, blamed everything on Kun.  Stupid bloody idiot should never have been allowed down to the surface.”

“We’ll probably get the blame,” Hamish predicted, glumly.  “We could have shot him in the back, they will say, or we should have shut him up by force.”

“I made it clear that you weren't to blame,” Penny said.

She sighed, inwardly.  Her article hadn't been the first - and even though it was the only first-hand report, it probably wasn’t sensational enough to attract a jaded public.  If it bleeds it leads, her editor had said more than once, and nothing drew the eye like dead children.  Her hands started to shake as she remembered the egg she’d held, wondering if the alien baby was dead or alive.  The public would be revolted, she knew; they’d be torn between the impulse to swat any barbarians who thought they could lay hands on a British citizen and murder the Paras who had killed alien babies in the crossfire.  And the politicians ...

Some of them don’t want to waste resources on Vesy
, she thought.  It wasn't as if Britain had much to spare. 
They’d have an excellent excuse to pull our official presence off the surface and leave Vesy to the other powers, if they want it.

“Thank you,” Hamish said.  “But would they listen?”

Penny snapped back to reality with a jolt, then hastily replayed their conversation in her head.

“I don’t know,” she confessed.  She picked up her cup of water and took a swig.  “I didn’t know
this
was what you intended when you asked me out for a drink.”

Hamish looked nonplussed for a moment, then laughed. 

“I do have a bottle of ...
something
I won at a poker match while we were on the transport,” he said.  “There isn't a ship in the Royal Navy that doesn't have an illicit still somewhere onboard.  But the Sergeant would kick my ass if I dared drink alcohol here, even though I’m supposed to remain confined to base with the rest of the lads.”

Penny frowned.  “They’re not letting you out the gates?”

“They’re not letting
anyone
out the gates,” Hamish said.  “You know all the small groups that were out in the field?  They’ve been called back and the gates have been sealed.  Everyone is on alert, save for those of us involved in the balls-up.  We’ve been told to stay here and wait.”

“Fuck,” Penny said. 

“Yeah,” Hamish agreed.  “It’s precisely the wrong message, if you ask me, but no one did.”

“Maybe,” Penny said.  She cursed herself under her breath.  If she’d been thinking straight, she would have checked the daily update as soon as she awoke.  Instead, she’d written her article and felt sorry for herself.  Percy would laugh at her if he ever found out.  “Or it could be a way of showing we’re sorry.”

Hamish looked unconvinced.  “From a military point of view,” he said, “there's a certain advantage to
not
allowing anyone to push you around, even if you are to blame for whatever went wrong.  Quite a few problematic  situations in the regiment’s long history started with politicians telling us not to slap back when we were provoked.”

“Unless they’re looking for an overreaction from you,” Penny said.

“Could be,” Hamish agreed.

He looked down at the table, then frowned.  “I can take you for better drinks when we get home ...?”

“I would be delighted,” Penny said.  She finished her water and put the cup to one side.  “Tell me about yourself?”

Hamish looked at her for a long moment.  “On or off the record?”

“Off,” Penny said.  She had done enough human interest interviews to last a lifetime, with the added problem that most of the people her editor
wanted
her to interview had flatly refused to talk to her.  “I just want to talk.”

“Not much to say, really,” Hamish said.  “Grew up in London, near the East End.  Bit of a rough childhood, so I had a nasty time at school; eventually, one of the teachers told me I’d do well in the army,
if 
I worked hard.  He’d been a Sergeant, apparently; he worked with kids who were bigger and meaner than me and never batted an eyelid.  Taming rough little brats was what he
did
.  And then the waters came rolling over London and ... well, to cut a long story short, I volunteered for service instead of being conscripted.”

“Like Percy,” Penny muttered.  “What about your family?”

“Mum died when I was very young, dad never remarried,” Hamish said.  “He was turning to drink when the aliens hit us and London was drowned.  I never saw him or my sister again.”

“I’m sorry,” Penny said.

“Don’t be,” Hamish said.  “It wasn't your fault.”

He shrugged.  “The Paras took me out of Catterick and put me through hell before I qualified to join them,” he added.  “And then I spent two years on various deployments, including one on Mars.  That was pretty cool, if weird.  They say Mars will be habitable in another hundred years.”

“So they say,” Penny said.  The Mars Project had begun before the tramlines had been discovered.  “I’ve never been there.”

“Go one day,” Hamish urged.  “It’s spectacular.”

He glanced at his watch.  “And I’d better get back to the barracks,” he added.  “Knowing my luck, there will be an emergency call in the middle of the night.”

Penny nodded, then leaned over the table and kissed his cheek.  “Thank you, again,” she said.  “You still owe me that drink.”

“I will, promise,” he said.  “If we ever get leave again, here, we can try to go somewhere together.”

“We can try,” Penny agreed.  She gave him another kiss, then rose.  “Goodnight.”

Hamish smiled at her.  “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he called.  “Really.”

Penny winced.  They’d been warned about insects infesting the barracks as soon as they’d landed.  As long as the rooms stayed cool, they weren't a problem ... but they wouldn’t stay cool forever.  The air conditioning seemed permanently on the brink of breaking down. 

“Goodnight,” she said, again.  “Bye!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Hell of a mess,” John said.  “There’s still been no word from City Seven?”

Joelle shook her head from where she was sitting on his sofa, curled up against a cushion and holding a mug of tea in her hand.  “Not a peep,” she said.  “The satellites tell us they’re still fighting one another, but no new leader seems to have emerged.”

“Pity we don’t understand their politics that well,” John said.  He picked up his own mug of tea, then sat down facing her.  Bringing her up to orbit was a risk, but he hadn't wanted to leave
Warspite
when the situation was in flux.  “They might be going through a ritual contest of strength before choosing a new leader or they might be fighting a flat-out civil war.”

He cursed under his breath.  Joelle had ordered all British personnel to remain at Fort Knight - and strongly advised personnel from the other powers to do the same - and they were getting restless, while the Indians moved from strength to strength.  It was hard to be sure, but it was starting to look like the Indians had no less than
thirteen
cities allied to them, thirteen cities that had already rejected visitors from the other powers before Kun decided to start a riot.  He couldn't help thinking that it was merely the beginning.  Kun, whatever he’d been thinking, had struck a blow at the underlying fabric of Vesy society.  They’d reacted by turning away from the outsiders.

Save for the Indians
, he thought. 
And the Indians have an unfair advantage
.

“There’s a second problem,” Joelle added.  “Ivan specifically requested a diplomatic visit - and named Lieutenant Schneider as the representative he wanted to see.”

John looked down at the deck, puzzled.  “They must understand he can't give them anything, surely?”

“I think so,” Joelle agreed.  “They certainly didn't ask for him or anyone else, once I arrived.  And underhanded diplomatic manoeuvres aren't really their
thing
.”

“As far as we can tell,” John said.  “I rather doubt any of them have had to deal with visitors from beyond the stars before.”

“Maybe their gods are visitors from the stars,” Joelle said.  “Wasn't there an entire group on Earth that believed aliens were the source of our myths?”

John shrugged.  If that were true, he would have expected a great deal more damage to Vesy society ... but then, if it had taken place thousands of years ago, there might be nothing left but rumours and tales that had grown in the telling.  He vaguely recalled a Hindu epic that might have been talking about a battle fought with modern weapons, if one squinted at it the right way.  God knew there were no shortage of books dating back two centuries that had predicted the development of interstellar warfare ... and thousands more that were laughably wrong.

“Maybe so,” he said, finally.  “How do you intend to proceed?”

Joelle took a sip of her tea.  “We do have the basics of a unified command structure on the surface now, excepting the Indians,” she said.  “If nothing happens for a week, we might as well start extending our presence again.  Give City Seven a wide berth and do our best to discourage religious lunatics from getting down to the surface.  Tie them up in bureaucratic paperwork, perhaps.”

“Might work,” John said.  “But it may take longer for any consequences to manifest.”

Joelle gave him a sharp look.  “Why do you say that?”

“Back during the War of 1812, there was a battle fought after peace was signed, because neither side could get word to their respective commanders before the attack went ahead,” John said.  “There was a working agreement, I believe, that anything along the same lines that took place after the peace wouldn't be regarded as a deliberate breach, as long as both sides returned to the
status quo
once word finally reached them.  It hasn't actually happened in space, but it easily
could
, given the nature of the tramlines.

“The Vesy don’t
have
instant communications,” he added.  “It could take weeks or months for word to spread over the local community;
years
, perhaps, for the entire planet to hear of it and by then the news will probably be badly distorted.  Just because nothing has materialised immediately doesn't mean that it
won’t.
”

Joelle frowned.  “Do you think it
will
?”

“I was never a religious man,” John said.  “Not really ... but there are plenty of people on Earth who take religion seriously, even though we know enough about how the universe developed to see our existence as random chance.  It had to happen somewhere, so why not Earth?  And Tadpole Prime?  And Vesy?  Hell, Ambassador, the discovery of two other worlds that gave birth to intelligent races suggest that there
is
something truly random about the process.  But a religious person will not see it that way.

“Kun struck at the heart of their religions - and, by now, the story will be growing more and more distorted as it spreads from city to city.”

“Chinese whispers,” Joelle said.

“Precisely,” John agreed.  He’d had the problem outlined to him while he’d been in the Academy; a message, repeated through dozens of mouths, might become something quite different by the time it reached its final destination.  “God alone knows what they’re thinking right now.”

“Percy Schneider might be about to find out,” Joelle said.

John nodded.  He couldn’t help thinking that that was a worrying sign.  The aliens hadn't really shown any tendency towards double-dealing, as far as he’d been able to tell; they’d told the humans, up front, what they wanted and backed away when it was not forthcoming.  There certainly hadn't been any attempt to stall the British while they held talks with other human powers.  He had a feeling, indeed, that the Vesy would honour their side of the agreement as long as the humans honoured theirs.  It was quite inhuman of them.

But if they had deliberately asked for someone they
knew
couldn't give them anything they might want ...?

He sighed, bitterly.  Kun was currently in the brig, complaining loudly about his injury, his imprisonment and the slop that passed for brig rations.  He’d be sent home on the next warship to leave orbit, where he would be charged with ...
something
.  The legal team had already admitted that it would be hard to charge Kun with anything, given just how many precedents had already been set.  Even
endangering lives
would be a hard charge to make stick in a suspicious court.

“Then we wait and see what he finds,” John said.  Could the aliens want to talk to a military leader?  It wasn't clear how much they understood of human rank structures, but they had to know that Percy Schneider was greatly outranked by Colonel Boone or John himself.  Or were they hoping to talk to someone they knew?  “And then consider our response.”

Joelle sighed.  “No word from Earth yet, but I saw the stories going back,” she said.  “There will be riots on the street once they get onto the datanet.”

“Look on the bright side,” John said.  “Maybe they’ll send us reinforcements.”

“I thought that wasn't likely,” Joelle said.

John gritted his teeth.  The vast majority of Britain’s professional force - as opposed to the conscript force - was currently deployed in Britain itself, helping to deal with the problems caused by the bombardment.  Getting 3 Para assigned to Vesy had been a stroke of luck; Boone had told him, during one of their first briefings, that 3 Para had been slated to go to Ireland before
Warspite
had returned to Earth.  It was unlikely the Prime Minister would be able to dispatch any other units without risking a revolt among the backbenchers.

“It’s not,” John said.  The French or Americans might have something to spare, but it seemed unlikely.  It was even
less
likely that Russian forces would be accepted, if any of them happened to be sent.  God alone knew what the Chinese would do.  “I don’t think they can even send us a few more warships.”

He looked into his mug of tea, seeking answers.  “Ambassador, I think we should seriously consider withdrawing our personnel and closing Fort Knight,” he admitted.  “The situation is too dangerous.”

Joelle stared at him, shocked.  “I have never heard a military officer advocate retreat before.”

“We prefer to think of it as a tactical adjustment towards the rear,” John said.  He smiled humourlessly, then frowned.  “If it was just military personnel on the ground, if we were fighting a war, I wouldn't advocate anything of the sort.  Here, though, we have countless civilians on the surface, all exposed to alien attack. 
And
said aliens have a very good reason to be pissed at us.  If we pull out now, tempers will have a chance to cool.”

“The Indians would not leave,” Joelle reminded him.  “Abandoning Fort Knight would surrender the planet to them.”

“They would also take the brunt of alien ...
displeasure
over Kun’s stupidity,” John pointed out.  But he knew she was right.  The British Government wouldn't want to create a situation where the aliens were largely aligned with the Indians, giving them a reasonable claim to the entire system.  “Maybe you should convince the Prime Minister to push for a complete quarantine of the surface.  Concede transit rights through the system in exchange for leaving the Vesy alone.”

“They’ve already been contaminated, quite badly,” Joelle said.  “Their culture will never be the same again.”

“I know,” John said.  It would be impossible to recover
everything
that might have been traded to the Vesy, if they’d been inclined to try.  “But at least they’d have a chance to get used to the idea of alien life without us being so close to them.”

“One would hope so,” Joelle said.  She shook her head.  “The PM would need to horse-trade with just about everyone to get an agreement to ban further imports of weapons, let alone ban any further
contact
.  Too many people would protest.”

John sighed.  If they’d stumbled across the Vesy before the Tadpoles, perhaps things would have been different.  The five Great Powers could have come to a solution and imposed it on the rest of the Human Sphere, perhaps merely declaring the entire system off-limits save for researchers and xenospecialists.  There would have been no attempt to make contact, no attempt to uplift them to human levels ... it would have been a better world.  But history had had its little joke, ensuring that humanity encountered the Vesy when the Great Powers were in no condition to impose anything. 

He frowned as a thought struck him.  “Have the Tadpoles said anything?”

“Nothing at all,” Joelle said.  “We told them about the Vesy, as we were obliged to do under the terms of the peace treaty, but they never expressed any interest in sending researchers of their own.  Maybe they just don’t find the Vesy particularly interesting.”

John shrugged.  “It’s possible,” he agreed.  “Or maybe they’re just not interested in the past.”

Joelle frowned.  “This isn't the past,” she said.  “They made a mistake when they ran into us and ended up fighting a war that could have wiped out both races.  Surely they’d be interested in more data on non-Tadpoles.”

“You’d think, wouldn't you?”  John said.  “But who knows what
they’re
thinking?  They’re not human, Ambassador, and they don’t
think
like humans.”

“They’re not stupid either,” Joelle countered.  “If they were stupid, they wouldn't have pushed us to the brink of defeat.”

And that, John knew, was true of the Vesy too.

***

“So,” Penny said, as she sat down facing Doctor Jill Pole.  “You spoke about a breakthrough?”

“Indeed,” Jill said.  She was a short, rather dumpy woman wearing a long white coat and a pair of spectacles she almost certainly didn't need.  “As you know, I’ve been studying a number of alien bodies since our arrival on Vesy.”