Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (29 page)

“We’re here,” Fraser said, opening the hatch.  The sleeping compartment was deserted, but messy, one of the lockers had sprung over, dumping its contents onto the deck.  “Get into your rack and have at least five hours of sleep.”

“He didn't deserve to die,” George said, numbly.  She’d known that people
died
on naval service, but she hadn't really
believed
it, not until now.  “He was a good man.”

“He was,” Fraser agreed, shortly.

“You should have died instead,” George said, bitterly.  “Why did
he
have to die?”

Fraser’s eyes flashed with anger, but he controlled himself.  “Shit happens,” he said.  “A young midshipman, fresh out of the academy, is among the list of the dead.  It’s a tragedy, but life does go on.”

“Not for him,” George snarled.

“Tell me something,” Fraser said, a hard edge entering his tone.  “If he were alive and you were dead, would you want him to waste his time moaning or getting some much-needed sleep?”

George balled her fists.  “That’s not fair!”

“
Life
isn't fair,” Fraser said.  “And you are acting like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl because you are tired, cranky and in shock.  Now, get into your rack and get some bloody sleep!”

The hatch opened.  Honoraria stepped into the compartment.  “What’s up?”

“Nathan is dead,” Fraser said.  “And George is taking it badly.”

“Shit,” Honoraria said.  She removed her jacket, hung it up from the railing and clambered into her rack without bothering to undress further.  “I'm sorry to hear that, really I am.”

“Keep an eye on George, if you can,” Fraser said.  “I need to do a couple of other things before I hit my rack.”

“Yes, sir,” Honoraria said.

Fraser pointed a finger at George.  “And if I catch you outside this compartment in less than five hours,” he added, “I’m going to give you such a clout.”

“Believe him,” Honoraria said, as Fraser stalked through the hatch.  “He’ll do it, too.”

George scrambled into her rack, pulled her curtain closed and fought hard to keep from crying.  Nathan had been a friend, a partner, an ally ... and now he was gone.  She’d met his family twice, when they’d visited the academy; she’d invited him home, even though he’d been too shy to meet so many wealthy and powerful aristocrats.  They’d been close friends, comrades, allies in arms ...

It should have been me
, she thought, as she closed her eyes. 
Nathan was doing so much better
...

The next thing she knew, someone was tapping gently at the curtain.  George jerked awake - no one would deliberately wake a sleeping midshipman unless it was urgent - and tore back the curtain.  Fraser was standing there, looking pensive.  She stared at him in horror, unsure what was going on.  How long had she been asleep?

“You're due to report to the tactical section in two hours,” Fraser told her.  George grabbed for her wristcom and checked the time.  She'd been asleep for nearly seven hours, but it felt as if she’d barely touched the pillow before waking up.  “And before then, we have something to do.”

George swallowed.  She’d been rude, very rude, to the first middy.  He was quite within his rights to assign punishment duties or, as he’d threatened, give her a clout.  But Fraser didn't look angry.  Instead, he was holding a box in his right arm.

“I need to go through Nathan’s stuff,” he said.  He opened Nathan’s locker as George scrambled out of her rack.  “If there’s anything you want that isn't intensely personal, you may take it.”

“I don’t want anything,” George said.  She rubbed her eyes as Fraser started pulling out Nathan’s spare uniforms.  “He ...”

“Would have wanted you to have it,” Fraser said.  It was customary to hand out a dead officer’s possessions, George recalled, save for anything personal.  The remainder would be returned to his family or recycled.  “You shouldn't pass up on anything that might be useful ...”

George nodded and watched as Fraser found a portable terminal and a handful of unmarked datachips.  “Porn, probably,” he said, dumping them into the box.  “Or Stellar Star.  There isn't much difference.”

“He wouldn't,” George objected.

“Then he’d be the first midshipman not to have a private porn stash,” Fraser said.  He smirked.  “Even the ones more interested in boys than girls have their own stashes.”

He picked up a photograph and glanced at it before passing it to George.  “That’s us,” she said, in surprise.  The photograph had been taken during a brief excursion to the Apollo 11 park, near Armstrong City.  “I remember that day!”

“So did he,” Fraser said.  “Keep the photograph, if you want.”

George nodded, tucking the photograph under her pillow.

Fraser snickered.  “Is this yours too?”

He held up a lacy thong.  George felt herself blushing as she looked at it, even though it was clearly meant for a woman with a larger behind than herself.  Where had it
come
from?

“That isn't mine,” she protested.  “How ...?”

“There’s a tradition of keeping underwear as a way of proving one scored,” Fraser said, dropping the thong into the box.  “It must have been a great lay.”

George shook her head.  “He had plenty of girlfriends,” she said.  “Is there anything else?”

“Just a set of handwritten notes,” Fraser said.  “They’ll go to his family, I believe.”

George eyed him.  “Shouldn’t we take the thong out first?”

“Take it and destroy it,” Fraser said, passing the box to her.  “Unless you want to run a DNA scan to see who it belongs to?”

“No, thank you,” George said, primly.

Fraser laughed.  “I don’t blame you,” he said.  “Now, go to the wardroom and get something to eat.  You’re on duty later, remember.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I don’t know
why
they attacked,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.

Henry allowed himself a smile.  He had no idea why Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam had been assigned to the tactical section, but he did have to admit that she had a decent grasp of tactics and how best to apply the technology at her disposal.  Maybe someone was still playing games - or, maybe, she’d been assigned to someone who wouldn't be impressed by her connections.  Or maybe she’d been assigned to work with him to keep her busy.

“We may not understand it for years,” he said, dryly.  The Tadpoles had had a reasonable motive, even if trying to make open contact would have saved considerable bloodshed on both sides.  “They may be so alien that we cannot understand them.”

“I thought certain concepts were universal,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.  “Surely their understanding of the universe can’t be that different from ours.”

“It depends,” Henry said.  “There have been human civilisations that thought differently from us, either because they hadn't evolved modern concepts or because they chose to openly reject them.  They weren't
alien
, but we still had problems understanding them because we assumed that they thought the same way as us, making their actions completely irrational.”

He shrugged.  The data was clear; the interpretation was not.  A powerful fleet had been attacked in what
had
to be a pre-planned ambush.  The enemy clearly hadn't expected the fleet to escape down an alien-grade tramline, but otherwise ... they’d been strikingly confident of victory.  Henry didn't like the implications.  Either the enemy had evolved from something akin to hermit crabs, which attacked anything foolish enough to pass within range, or they’d been utterly confident of victory.  And
that
suggested they had a good idea of the power of their enemies.

They might have known about the Tadpoles for far longer than we assumed
, he thought, grimly. 
And if that’s true, they might know about us too
.

“They didn't even
try
to communicate,” he muttered.  “They just attacked.”

They went through the final set of reports, trying to put together a briefing for the captain and her senior officers.  Henry had watched Captain Harper carefully, fearing disaster, but apart from a prickly disposition Harper didn't seem to be anything other than a competent naval officer.  Two days had allowed the crews to get as many repair jobs done as possible, although launching all of their starfighters was going to be a major hassle. 
Roosevelt
and the two surviving escort carriers couldn’t hope to launch them all.

And our contingency plans are unlikely to survive their first encounter with the enemy
, he thought, checking his wristcom.  They had an hour before the briefing, but there was little more to say. 
Everything we know about the unknowns suggests that they are insane
.

“Sir,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said, quietly.  “Can I ask you a question?”

Henry gave her a sharp look. 
That
didn't sound like a
normal
question.

“You may,” he said.

“My ... my friend died,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said, slowly.  “And I feel ... I feel all sorts of things.”

Henry lifted his eyebrows.  “Like what?”

“Conflicted,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.  “I’m saddened he’s gone, I miss him; at the same time, I’m angry at him for dying and I’m angry at the aliens for killing him.  And I’m feeling numb and yet sorrowful ... is that remotely normal?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “I lost too many friends during the last war.  All you can really do is carry on.  The pain lessens, in time.”

“But I feel so conflicted,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam protested.  “I don’t
feel
normal!”

Henry met her eyes.  “How many people have you lost?”

“My grandmother died when I was nine,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said, after a moment’s thought.  “But she was in her nineties.”

“And you had time to prepare yourself for her death,” Henry said.  “Your friend died suddenly, unexpectedly.  And so you are conflicted.”

He leaned forward, trying to sound reassuring.  “You’ll miss him, really,” he added.  It sounded as though the friend had been
more
than a friend, but he didn't want to ask.  “I think you’ll have days when his absence will be an aching wound, yet it will fade.  And then, afterwards, you’ll see him again.”

“If there is a God,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.  “But if there is, why would He allow a new alien race to start slaughtering us?”

Henry shrugged.  “There are people who believe that aliens are His children, just as we are, and He loves us all equally, meaning that we have to learn to get along,” he said.  He’d never considered himself very religious, although watching his children being born had taught him that there were true wonders in the universe.  “And there are people who believe that the existence of aliens is a test, a test we have to pass if we wish to survive.  Either we make friends with them or one race wipes the other out.”

“Like the Survivalists,” Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam said.  “Didn't they evolve from the Humanity League?”

“Yeah,” Henry said.  “But they have a point.”

Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam looked down at the deck.  “Which one do
you
believe?”

“I'm not convinced there is any grand plan,” Henry said.  He’d grown to loathe organised religion before he saw his first decade.  “Just a string of accidents that comprise history.  If we’d met the Tadpoles in space, surely we wouldn't have had a war.”

He cleared his throat.  “And we’d better get back to work,” he said.  “We have a briefing to attend in fifty minutes.”

***

“And so we’re as ready as we’ll ever be, outside spending a couple of months in a shipyard,” Chief Engineer Alan Finch concluded.  “The patches on the hull should keep us going for a while longer.”

“Let us hope so,” Susan said.  She’d inspected the damage over the last two days. 
Vanguard
had survived, unlike so many other ships, but not all of the pre-combat simulations had been accurate.  “Do you think we can survive another battle?”

“We might have no choice,” Finch said.  “But there’s little else we can do before we go back to war.”

Susan nodded curtly, then looked at Mason.  He’d handled the military aspect of the tactical analysis while Prince Henry had looked at the other aspects.  She wasn't looking forward to this part of the briefing, but it had to be endured.

“Captain,” Mason said.  He took a breath, then keyed his console, projecting a holographic image of the battle over the table.  “At your command, my staff and I have gone through the sensor records and produced a preliminary analysis of alien capabilities.

“First, their stealth system.  It appears to be more of a sensor
shroud
than a cloaking device, as far as we can tell; it definitely
looks
to be a blanket covering an entire fleet, rather than merely hiding a single ship.  The bad news is that it has none of the weaknesses of a cloaking device; the good news is that it isn't remotely perfect, scattering sensor pulses rather than obscuring them.  I believe that extending the drone screen outwards and combining our sensors through the datanet would provide additional warning of any further ambushes.”

He paused, then went on.  “Second, their missiles.  Our general feeling is that they have successfully designed compact missile drives at least an order of magnitude more powerful than our own, although they share many of the same weaknesses.  Not least the simple fact that we can track them from launch and project their course.  Their warheads, however, remain a more serious problem.  We do not, as yet, have any explanation for their improved laser heads.”

Reed leaned forward.  “Did they not simply scale up a bomb-pumped laser system?  That’s what the Indians did.”

“Not unless they’ve designed a way to construct a mini-warhead,” Mason said.  He scowled, darkly.  “Their missiles aren't actually any larger than ours, but their warhead yields and ranges are definitely greater.  We may need to start targeting their missiles with buckshot, rather than plasma cannons.  They can just program their weapons to detonate outside our point defence range.”

“Update the programming,” Susan ordered.  Buckshot was a frighteningly inefficient weapon, compared to plasma cannons, but the projectiles
did
keep going until they ran into something solid.  “Can we do anything else about the missiles?”

“Not as yet, Captain,” Mason said.  “They’re really quite determined little buggers.  The Americans did try to draw some of them off with ECM decoys, but they didn't take the bait.”

“They might have had hard locks on our hulls,” Charlotte offered.  “The fleet wasn't really trying to hide.”

“True,” Susan agreed.  “Next time, we’ll be using our own stealth systems.”

Mason nodded, then leaned forward.  “There’s a more serious problem, however,” he warned, his voice growing darker.  “Watch the display and tell me what you think.”

Susan scowled - she hated guessing games - but watched, anyway, as the ambush played itself out for the second time.  One alien fleet coming up the rear, another heading outwards from the tramline leading straight to the alien system ... it was definitely a picture-perfect ambush.  And yet, coordinating it should have been hellishly difficult ...

“Run it again,” she ordered, coldly.  She felt numb as the pattern evolved in front of her.  “I ... they have some form of FTL communication.”

“Impossible,” Parkinson said.

“The aliens coordinated their operations as if there was no time-delay between their two formations,” Mason said, flatly.  Susan guessed he was as stunned as she was.  For all the rumours, no one had ever successfully sent a message at FTL speeds.  “If you watch this part of the battle, it’s clear the aliens react faster than they should, if they were limited to radio waves or laser communicators.”

“If that’s the case,” Susan said slowly, “they have a major advantage.”

“Yes, sir,” Mason said.  “As yet, we have no idea of the system’s range, but we know it covers well over five light-minutes.  We have to assume that the
actual
range might be much greater.”

Susan nodded.  It took between five minutes and twenty-one minutes to send a signal from Earth to Mars, depending on the two planets relative positions.  But if someone could halve the time it took to send a signal, they’d have a major advantage.  And in a space battle, where seconds counted, it could give them a
decisive
advantage.  The more she thought about it, the colder she felt.  Upgraded missiles were one thing, but FTL communications?

She tapped the table, meaningfully.  “Do we have any clue how they do it?”

“Not as yet,” Mason said.  “I have teams going through every last recording, but so far they’ve turned up nothing that might point to how it’s done.  It’s quite possible, I think, that the FTL signals are beyond our ability to detect.”

“Wonderful,” Susan said, tartly.  She knew she was being unfair, but she couldn't stop herself.  “Do you have any other pieces of good news?”

“I’m afraid not,” Mason said.  “Most of the ships that were destroyed during the battle were smashed, but a handful may have left significant chunks of debris behind.  Even if the aliens have a habit of shooting at lifepods, Captain, they’ll be able to recover biological samples.”

Dead humans and Tadpoles
, Susan thought.

She scowled.  “Does that pose a threat?”

“It would certainly tell them they’re facing two races,” Mason said.  “Beyond that ... I don’t think it poses an immediate problem.  But they would have the ability, at least in theory, to manufacture a biological weapon targeted on us.”