The Trafalgar Gambit (Ark Royal) (18 page)

But that could be because modern carriers can't stand up to the aliens
, he thought.  They looked good, alright, but the aliens could blow them into flaming debris within seconds. 
We won’t be building carriers like that again
.

He sighed inwardly as he took his seat and surveyed the main display.  There were plans to build a whole new generation of armoured carriers and battleships, but it would still be years before the first ship left the shipyard and went to the front lines.  Until then,
Ark Royal
was unique, utterly irreplaceable.  And, if the Admiralty hadn't been willing to gamble, she would probably have remained tied to Earth, defending humanity’s homeworld against the scum of the universe.

And would it have made a difference,
he asked himself,
if we had stayed in orbit around Earth
?

He’d reviewed the records of the Battle of Earth.  The main thrust of the alien attack had fallen on the planet’s fixed defences, but they’d managed to find time to devastate the unified carrier fleet in passing. 
Ark Royal
might have made a difference – or she might just have been blown apart by alien laser warheads too.  There was no way to know what would have happened if she’d been there.  But he knew he would always ask himself if they’d made a mistake in haring off to attack Target One.

Angrily, he pushed the thought aside.  Endlessly dwelling on the past was pointless.  What was done was done.  It could not be changed.  All that mattered was adapting to the world as it was and then moving forward.  There was no point in thinking otherwise.

“Commander Lightbridge,” he said.  “Are we ready to depart?”

“Yes, Captain,” Lightbridge said.  As always, he seemed remarkably cheerful.  “Drives are online; all systems read nominal.  We can depart on your command.”

Anderson needs a reward
, James thought. 
And so do the people who designed the ship before she was built.  All that damage and she’s still operational
.

He looked down at the status display, then up at Lieutenant Annie Davidson.  “Signal the Admiralty,” he ordered the communications officer.  “Inform them that we are departing on schedule.”

“Aye, sir, Davidson said.

“And then signal the remainder of the flotilla,” James added.  “Give them a countdown to our departure.”

He settled back in his chair, feeling the starship quivering around him.  Anderson had tested and retested everything, but he’d expressed private concerns over some of the components they’d had to hastily repair or replace.  The Old Lady was built for constant modification – her designers had assumed naval technology would continue to advance indefinitely – yet some of her older systems were completely incompatible with newer systems.  Anderson had said it time and time again, hammering the point home.  There had been no attempt to modify and modernise
Ark Royal
while she’d been floating in the Naval Reserve and they were paying for it now.

The ship quivered again, a feeling that echoed through his bones and then faded away into nothingness.  He couldn't help feeling a quiver himself, recalling just how blithely he’d turned down Uncle Winchester’s offer of a way out of the nightmare.  He’d meant every word he’d said to the older man – he was damned if he was deserting Admiral Smith now – and yet part of him wondered if he’d made a mistake.  But there was no going back now. 

Maybe they’ll send the fleet out anyway
, he thought, sourly. 
Whatever else happens, things are going to change for humanity
.

He took a breath.  “Bring the drives up to full power,” he ordered as the countdown reached zero.  “And then take us towards the tramline.”

“Aye, Captain,” Lightbridge said.  A low hum echoed through the ship, growing in power as the drives started to propel the Old Lady forward.  “We are underway.”

“Prepare to launch the drones as soon as we cross the tramline,”  James ordered the tactical officer.  “Do it just like we practiced.”

“Aye, Captain,” Commander Keith Farley said.  “The drones are ready for immediate launch.”

James nodded, feeling sweat trickling down his back.  The aliens hadn't tried to occupy Terra Nova, but they might well have pickets in the system, watching humanity’s starships as they moved towards the front lines.  Ideally, the drones would pose as
Ark Royal
and her flotilla long enough for the fleet to slip away under cloak and then make its way towards the very edge of the Terra Nova system.  Once there, away from any alien pickets, they would start advancing towards Target One. 

Again
, he thought, wryly. 
But will they have bothered to repair the defences and station war fleets in the system to meet us
?

It was the old question, he knew.  Just how many ships did the aliens
have
?  There was no way to know, yet he suspected that if the ships
Ark Royal
had encountered during Operation Nelson had been assigned to the attack on Earth, Earth would have fallen.  It suggested that the aliens either had publics that refused to allow home defence to be minimised or internal security problems of their own.  Perhaps there were several alien groups and the one fighting humanity had to watch its back at the same time.

Are they watching the back doors into their space
, he asked himself,
or are they gathering their forces for one last try at Earth
?

James had never considered himself a strategist.  Uncle Winchester was the long-term thinker in the family.   But he thought he understood the alien tactics.  They’d devised a weapons mix they’d thought would be sufficient to overwhelm humanity – and they would have been right, if
Ark Royal
had been scrapped.  Their advance through humanity’s star systems had been smooth, clearly intended to mop up resistance as they went along, rather than a blitzkrieg towards Earth.  And then they’d been slapped back by
Ark Royal
and had been forced to reconsider their options. 

And the bastards are alarmingly innovative
, he thought, remembering the nightmarish moment when laser warheads had burned into his ship’s hull. 
Just like us
.

“Captain,” Lightbridge said, breaking into his thoughts.  “We are approaching the tramline.”

James nodded, feeling his gut twist uncomfortably.  He would have preferred to sneak through the tramline to Terra Nova, but it had been unlikely that the aliens wouldn't be watching the Old Lady and her fleet ... if, of course, they had pickets in the Sol System.  It was what
James
would have done, if he’d had the ships to spare – and as long as they remained stealthy, there was little fear of detection.

“
War Hog
is to jump,” he ordered.  The frigate already had her orders.  “And the remainder of the fleet is to go to tactical alert.”

Alarms howled through the giant carrier as, on the display, the icon representing the frigate crawled towards the tramline and vanished.  It was unlikely, James knew, that the aliens were preparing an ambush.  They probably didn't have an entire fleet under cloak in the next system.  But he knew better than to take anything for granted, not now.  He silently counted down the seconds in his head until the icon snapped back into existence, seemingly untouched.

“Captain,” Davidson said, “local space is clear.”

James nodded, relieved.  “Take us through,” he ordered.  “And then launch the drones.”

He hated the moments when he couldn't do anything, when all the orders were issued and all he could do was wait for them to be carried out, but there was nothing he could do about them.  The carrier shivered as she passed through the tramline, then the lights automatically dimmed slightly as the cloaking device activated.  As long as the aliens didn't have a picket alarmingly close to the tramline, they shouldn't have noticed the carrier cloaking.  Her signature had been replaced by a drone. 

“Drones are deployed, sir,” Farley reported.  “Everything looks nominal.”

Unless the aliens attack the drones
, James thought. 
They’d learn very quickly that nothing was remotely nominal about them
.

“Send the drones off on their cruise,” he ordered.  “And keep monitoring them for glitches.”

He rose to his feet and walked over to Farley’s console as the drones moved further and further away from the ship.  Terra Nova hadn't even
tried
to hail the fleet, even though the planet was within a few light minutes of the tramline.  According to the last report, Terra Nova had gone underground, with all radio transmitters confiscated by the various governments.  James rather doubted the governments had managed to secure all the transmitters, but it hardly mattered.  The aliens knew perfectly well where Terra Nova was, if they wanted it.  And the planet was effectively defenceless.

“The drones appear to be working perfectly,” Farley said, after ten minutes had passed.  The display updated as the drones curved away from their mothership.  “They’re starting their loop around the system now.  They’ll return to the tramline in three days and go silent.  It’ll look like they jumped out of the system.”

“Good,” James said.  He returned to his command chair and sat.  “Helm, take us towards the transfer point, under cloak.  Be sure to keep a distance from
any
contact, no matter how weak.”

“Aye, sir,” Lightbridge said.

James settled back into his chair.  It would take hours to reach the planned transfer point, then days to cross the alien-held system to the next tramline.  Normally, starships sought out the least-time courses, but they were the easiest ones to predict and picket.  The aliens would have their work cut out for them if they tried to picket all possible courses.  They’d need thousands of ships or sensor platforms to make it workable.

Which won’t stop them leaving listening posts in a few sensible locations,
James thought. 
That’s what we do, after all
.

He keyed a switch.  “All hands, this is the Captain,” he said.  “We will remain under cloak, as planned, for the foreseeable future.  I expect all of you to remember the silent running protocols.”

Closing the channel, he thought rapidly.  The crew would be tense, he knew, but there was nothing he could do about that.  There was something about being under cloak that made it harder for people to concentrate and left them whispering to one another, even though everyone knew sound didn't travel through space.  The XO would do her best to arrange activities for the crewmen, once they ran out of repair work to do; he hoped it would keep everyone distracted.

And stop our guests from complaining
, he thought.  The Ambassadors had taken their quarters in stride, but their aides had complained loudly.  Perhaps they just hated the thought of having to share a cabin with their superiors.  James, who had to share a cabin with his XO, found it hard to be sympathetic.  And he was quite prepared to murder Uncle Winchester if he suggested that something untoward had developed between him and Commander Williams.

“Keep us on course,” he ordered, pulling up a tactical exercise.  At least they had even more data on just what the aliens could do.  But who knew what they’d kept hidden from humanity until it was too late?  There was too much speculation and not enough hard facts.  “Inform me the moment anything changes.”

Shaking his head, he activated the exercise and went to work.

“That was a major balls-up,” Kurt said, glowering at the assembled newcomers.  Half of them looked as though they were going to start crying.  “If the aliens had attacked us like that, you would all be dead.  And so would the crew of this ship.”

He sighed, inwardly.  Why was it a surprise, he asked himself sarcastically, that the trainee pilots had bigger egos than piloting skills?  There was an old joke, after all, that if a pilot didn't know who was the best pilot in the sky it sure as hell wasn't him.  But it couldn’t be tolerated, not now.