Authors: Christopher Nuttall
The shuttle altered course, allowing him to see every last detail of the carrier’s hull. James had to admit that she looked good, if crude. She might have been in the reserves, but her crew hadn't been allowed to slack off ... even if they had felt they’d been exiled to the ass end of nowhere. He felt an odd flicker of admiration for Smith. The man might have a reputation for drinking, yet he'd managed to keep his command in shape.
Smith keyed his terminal as the shuttle straightened out and headed towards the shuttlebay. “I’m calling the senior crew to the shuttlebay,” he said, by way of explanation. “There won’t be a formal welcoming party, I’m afraid, but I’ll introduce you to the senior officers. You can meet the others later, once we’re more organised.”
“Yes, sir,” James said. There were senior officers who would be furious if the formalities were ignored, but he saw Smith’s point.
Ark Royal’s
reserve crew didn't have the manpower to put on a display. He swallowed again as he realised the depth of his own ignorance.
Ark Royal’s
crew knew far more than him about their starship’s condition. “I look forward to it.”
Smith smiled. The shuttle landed – there was a faint shiver as the shuttle’s artificial gravity field merged with the starship’s internal field – and the hatch hissed open. James rose to his feet and followed Smith out of the hatch and into the shuttlebay, looking around with considerable interest. The shuttlebay looked as crude as the starship’s interior, but it was clearly kept in good shape. Two more shuttles, both partly cannibalised for spare parts, sat on the other side of the giant compartment. They looked oddly pitiful to James’s eyes.
It took him a moment to realise that something was missing ... and several more moments to realise what it
was
. The omnipresent background noise from the starship’s drives was simply absent. James felt his eyes narrow, then realised that most of the drives and their fusion cores would have been shut down while the starship remained in the reserves. There was no point in placing further wear and tear on equipment that was effectively irreplaceable.
They stepped through the airlock and into the welcoming lounge. James saluted the flag, then straightened automatically as he saw four officers waiting for them. All four of them looked alarmingly dishevelled, as if they’d only just climbed out of their bunks. They didn't seem to have much pride in themselves, he realised grimly, and yet there was something about them that kept him from dismissing them automatically. He couldn't place his finger on it.
“Welcome aboard,” Smith said. “Commander Fitzwilliam, please allow me to introduce Alan Anderson, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Daniel Lightbridge, Helmsman, Lieutenant Commander Keith Farley, Tactical Officer and Midshipwoman Janelle Lopez.”
There was a long moment as they exchanged salutes. James studied them, silently promising to read their files as soon as possible. Anderson looked tough; his left arm had been replaced with a metallic prosthetic that made no attempt to pass for natural flesh and blood. Like most senior engineering crew, James knew, he would have spent most of his career on
Ark Royal
, working his way up the ranks to Chief Engineer. Chances were that he wouldn't have a hope of another posting, even if
Ark Royal
were to be permanently decommissioned. His experience would be years out of date.
Lightbridge was a tall black man, his bald head gleaming in the cold light from overhead. He held himself so still that it seemed almost unnatural, although there was a hint of easy competence in his stance. All helmsmen, at least in James’s experience, resented not being starfighter pilots and tended to put their ships through exaggerated manoeuvres purely to prove they could.
Ark Royal
probably wouldn't be able to tolerate it, he guessed, making another mental note to check the files. Just who had Lightbridge pissed off to be posted to the ancient carrier?
Keith Farley, by contrast, seemed permanently uncertain of his capabilities. The name was oddly familiar, but it took James several moments to remember a naval bulletin that had named and shamed an officer who’d managed to ram an asteroid, a feat that should have been impossible. No doubt part of the story had been missing, he decided, as he eyed Farley carefully. He should have been kicked out of the navy if he'd actually rammed an asteroid.
Midshipwomen Lopez was a surprise. She was tall and slim, with a dark complexion and long dark hair that fell down her back. Naval uniforms were far from flattering, but James couldn't help noticing the swell of her breasts and the shape of her hips. What was
she
doing on the ship? James wondered, sourly, if she was having a relationship with one of the other crewmen. Being assigned to
Ark Royal
was career death, to all intents and purposes. The thought made him scowl, bitterly. His own career might have been killed ... and he'd done it to himself.
“You can meet everyone formally later,” Smith said. He raised his voice, addressing his officers. “Briefing Room A, ten minutes.”
James nodded and followed Smith through the starship’s interior. The corridors were bare; every few metres, a hatch lay open, revealing the starship’s innards. James cringed, remembering just what his first CO had said when a hatch had been left open accidentally, then realised that
Ark Royal’s
crew didn't have much choice. There was so much to do and so few of them to actually do it. He was mildly surprised that there was no dust in the corridors; indeed, it seemed that the whole ship was surprisingly clean.
He paused as he heard a dull rumble echoing through the ship. “What was
that
?”
“Test cycle for Fusion Five,” Smith said. “We test one of the six fusion cores each day, just to make sure that they are still operational. Losing one of them would be irritating.”
“More than irritating,” James said, recalling his earlier thoughts. “Could they be replaced, if necessary?”
“We’d have to have the cores built specially for
Ark Royal
,” Smith said. He smirked, as if something amusing had just struck him. “Not the only such problem, of course. We couldn't get the different generations of computer cores to work together, no matter what the manufacturer claimed. In the end, we had to splice in a Chinese system we scrounged up from somewhere, just to provide a bridging system. If we have to replace the cores, we can probably improve on the design and cut out half of the cost.”
James stared at him. “You have a
Chinese
computer system attached to the ship?”
“Among others,” Smith said. He seemed to be enjoying James’s discomfort. “As I told you, we’ve had to improvise.”
Briefing Room A looked as though it had been reassuringly normal, once. A large table sat in the middle of the compartment, surrounded by chairs ... half of which were piled high with boxes. Judging by the markings, James decided, Smith and his crew had laid claim to thousands of outdated spare parts that would otherwise have been sold to civilians or simply discarded for scrap. Probably the former, he told himself, after a moment. Even outdated military surplus would be useful for civilian starship crews.
“Find a seat,” Smith said. “We’ll start in a moment.”
James hesitated, then took one of the handful of empty seats and watched as Midshipwoman Lopez entered, carrying a tray of mugs. There was a large bottle beside the mugs, he noticed as she put the tray down on the table, but it was completely unmarked. If it came from a still on
Ark Royal
– technically against regulations, yet he’d never served on a ship that
didn't
have a still – it might well be very strong indeed.
“Be seated,” Smith ordered as his officers entered the compartment. “We have a great deal to discuss.”
It seemed remarkably informal to James, but he realised – as the officers sat down and reached for their mugs - that they shared a camaraderie that bound them together, no matter how poor their grasp of naval discipline seemed to be. Smith had forged a good team, he suspected, although they had never been tested in the fire. But then, very few officers had any experience with interstellar combat. A great many officers and men were going to be tested soon.
“There have been developments,” Smith said, quietly. He briefly ran through what the Admiral had told them, ending with the statement that
Ark Royal
was going to return to active service. “We have a month – perhaps less – to ready ourselves for combat.”
“Aliens,” Anderson repeated. “Not another race of Alien Space Bats, I hope?”
James had to smile. The Alien Space Bats had been a hoax, perpetrated by bored asteroid miners years ago, back when humanity hadn't yet left the Sol System. By the time the miners had finally confessed to the hoax, countless academics had been taken in and wasted thousands of hours trying to make contact with the enigmatic aliens. The affair had dented so many otherwise reputable careers that many scientists had refused to believe it when spacers had reported discovering non-intelligent life forms on several extra-solar worlds.
“There have been deaths,” Smith said. “And it isn't just us. Every spacefaring power is bringing its military to full alert.”
There was a long pause as they contemplated the end of peace. James knew that MI6 knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other human interstellar powers ... but they knew nothing about the enigmatic alien threat. Unless he’d been right, he told himself, and enough people
had
known to start preparing the human race for contact. And yet ... surely the secret would have leaked out by now. Humanity’s governments were very poor at keeping secrets.
“We should have our new crewmen assigned to us within the week,” Smith said, before anyone could start discussing the potential nature of the threat. “Once we do, I want to move ahead with a full rejuvenation of the ship.” He looked over at Anderson. “We’ll go with Option Alpha, I think, and concentrate on our war-fighting capabilities first.”
“Understood,” Anderson said, gruffly. “We will need to clear the launch bays before we can start taking on new fighters.”
“It may be a while before we get them,” Smith said. “They’ll all have to be removed from storage and checked out before they’re sent to us.”
James blinked in surprise. The carrier had no fighters?
“They might send us the older models,” Farley suggested. “I don’t think that many of the newer carriers could handle them.”
“We will check it out,” Smith said. He looked from face to face. “This isn't a drill, but a real situation. We – the entire human race – are going to war with a threat of unknown power and motivation. All we really know about them is that they’re hostile. I expect each and every one of you to do your duty.”
“Of course, sir,” Anderson said. He patted the table affectionately. “The old lady will do her duty too.”
Smith smiled. “Of course she will,” he agreed. He stood, then paused. “As yet, there has been no formal announcement of the situation. I imagine that will change, soon enough, but until then please don’t mention it in your v-mails. It would be inconvenient to have to break you out of prison.”
James had to smile at the weak joke, although he knew that Smith was right. It wouldn't be long before word got out – and, once it did, there would be panic. No wonder the Admiral had wanted to get as much done as possible before the news hit the media datanet. But something would definitely leak once the reserves were called up ...
Of course it will
, he thought, tartly.
The reserves haven’t been called up for anything other than mandatory training in years
.
Smith waited for the officers to leave the compartment, then turned to James. “I want you to familiarise yourself as quickly as possible with the crew and our internal systems,” he ordered, shortly. “Once we get the first set of reservists, I want you to handle their integration into the ship’s crew. My current set of officers will have seniority, regardless of actual time served. We can’t afford unpractised officers trying to take command, not now.”
“Understood,” James said, recognising the unspoken warning.
He
was an unpractised officer, at least on
Ark Royal
. There was no alternative, but to study the ship as quickly as possible and figure out just what improvements had been made to the original systems. “I won’t let you down.”
Chapter Three
“But it wasn't my fault!”
Kurt Schneider gritted his teeth as he drove away from the school, silently cursing his teenage daughter under his breath. It
was
her fault, he knew, that he had been summoned out of work early just to hear the headteacher explain, in great detail, precisely why Penny had been summarily suspended from school for two weeks. And then – and
then
– he’d been warned that if her behaviour didn't improve, she would be permanently expelled and forced to find another school.
“It really wasn't,” Penny whined. “I didn't mean to get into a fight ...”
“You told your teacher that she was a right stupid cow,” Kurt growled. The recording of the whole incident had been shocking. “And your headteacher was quite right to say your behaviour was unacceptable.”
“But she kept changing the rules,” Penny insisted. “I ...”
“Shut up,” Kurt snapped, massaging his temples. It had been a long day even before the call had come from school. “When we get home, we are going to have a proper talk about your conduct.”