Ark Royal

Chapter Fifteen

The Captain, James decided, as he waited in the shuttlebay, must have realised that James had been speaking to the First Space Lord behind the Captain’s back. It was the only explanation, he felt, for why the Captain had given him the assignment for babysitting the reporters, even though there were more junior officers — including Lieutenant Abramczyk — who could have handled the task. But then, he had to admit, he certainly deserved some kind of punishment for breaking the Captain’s trust. Having to deal with reporters was definitely cruel and unusual punishment.

He shifted uncomfortably inside his dress uniform as the shuttle settled slowly onto the deck, a dull clunk echoing round the shuttlebay as it landed. The PR staffers always looked photogenic, something that had puzzled James until he’d realised that they were trying to impress reporters too ignorant or stupid to know that a clean uniform wasn't always the sign of a competent officer. James had served under one commanding officer who had insisted that his senior officers always wear their dress uniforms, even though regulations only required them for special occasions. He wondered what had happened to that CO as the shuttle’s hatch opened, revealing the reporters.

They weren't a prepossessing bunch, he decided, as they stumbled out onto the deck. A couple wore clothes that looked military, at least when seen from a distance, and several more wore khaki jackets that would have been better suited to embedding with the ground forces, rather than the Royal Navy. The remainder wore a wide variety of civilian clothes, ranging from simple tracksuits to low-cut shirts and miniskirts that would be sure to draw attention from the ship’s crew. A less professional bunch, James decided, would be hard to find. Even the entertainers who made their way from starship to starship looked more professional.

He stepped forward, pasting a smile on his face. His family had taught him how to face the press, although none of their training had covered this exact scenario. The downside of being born into the aristocracy, he’d been told time and time again, was that everything you did was considered newsworthy. You could fart in bed, his grandfather had told him, and someone would consider it news. And while one set of reporters would consider an aristocrat someone to admire, another set would consider him someone to tear down at all costs. Being in the navy, he'd thought, would preserve him from their particular brand of savagery. Clearly, he’d been wrong.

“Welcome onboard Ark Royal,” he said, as he surveyed the reporters. Several of them carried cameras and other forms of recording equipment; he’d have to make sure that none of it interfered with the ship’s systems. “If you’ll come with me…?”

He led them through a maze of corridors and into a small briefing compartment. Two junior crewmen had spent the day transferring all of the boxes of spare parts out of the compartment, just so he could brief the reporters. He scowled inwardly at the waste of time it represented, even though he knew that neither he nor Captain Smith had been offered a choice. The reporters had to be humoured, at least until they crossed the line so badly that no one could argue when the Captain threw them into the brig.

“Please, be seated,” he said, wondering idly which of them would make the first complaint. The overweight man pretending to be a naval officer or the blonde-haired girl who looked thinner than a plastic doll? James had seen children with more meat on their bones than her. “We have a great deal to get through and not much time.”

The reporters should have been briefed on Nelson Base, but James had already privately resolved to run through everything again, anyway. It wouldn't be the first time, Lieutenant Abramczyk had warned him, where a PR officer on a base had neglected to tell the reporters what they needed to hear, fearing that it would destroy his career. James hadn't been surprised at all to hear it. Reporters, in his experience, were rarely smart enough to realise that the military’s rules and regulations existed for a reason.

“How many of you,” he asked, “have embedded on a military starship before?”

A handful of hands — four in all — went up. James sighed, inwardly. At least they weren't all virgins. It wasn't a reassuring thought. Even modern carriers suffered their fair share of accidents when new crewmembers moved in… and some of those accidents were lethal. The reporters were even less prepared for Ark Royal than James himself.

“Right,” he said. “This is a military starship — and a very dangerous environment. Cabins have been assigned to you; I strongly recommend that you remain in your cabins unless you have an escort. If you choose to leave your cabins, bear in mind that there are some parts of the ship that are completely off-limits without prior permission and an escort. Those locations are detailed in your briefing notes.”

He paused. “I understand that you will want interviews with crewmen,” he added. “Such interviews will be arranged upon request. I advise you not to interfere with crewmen as they go about their duties, or to attempt to force them to be interviewed.”

“But you’ll have a chance to brief those you let speak to us,” one of the older reporters objected. “We want unprepared interviews.”

James tried not to roll his eyes. If the reporter had suspected that every one of the prepared interviewees would toe the party line, he shouldn't have said it out loud. Or was he laying the groundwork for attacking the navy if the interviews didn’t turn up anything he wanted? Or was he simply an idiot?

“None of them will be briefed ahead of time,” James said. He shook his head, then pressed onwards. “All of your reports will be viewed by the PR staff before they are transmitted home. Certain pieces of information, outlined in your briefing notes, are not supposed to be included in public reports. If you include them, you will be placed in the brig and left there until we return to Earth, whereupon you will be handed over to the police.”

“The aliens can't intercept our news broadcasts,” another reporter objected. “Those rules are designed to protect the government, not humanity.”

“That’s as may be,” James said, feeling his head start to pound. Perhaps the Captain had something he could drink to relieve his feelings. He’d sooner face a mob of aliens stark naked than reporters. No doubt he would be made to look really ugly when the reporters started releasing their reports. “The point is that operational security cannot be violated without consequences.”

He ran through the rest of the notes — a short primer on how to behave on the ship — and then led them to their cabins. Originally, the cabins had been intended for an Admiral and his staff; they were the largest cabins on the ship. Even three or four reporters to a compartment was better than the junior crewmen received, deep in the bowels of the ship. But the complaining started almost at once.

What exactly did they expect? James asked himself. A massive compartment for each of them, alone? With a bath and a dressing room and…

He shook his head, then smiled at them, humourlessly. “You can return to Earth if you like,” he said. “The shuttle will still be in the bay for another hour or two. If you don't like the quarters, you can return to Earth. However, there is no guarantee of receiving another embedded post.”

It was interesting, he decided, as the complaints faded away, just to see who was doing the complaining. None of the prior embeds had complained, even slightly. James made a mental note to glance at their files. The newcomers were the ones who complained loudest at the prospect of sharing quarters. James could understand a desire for privacy, but anyone who wanted privacy shouldn't bother to join the navy. He'd seen his first crewmates naked more times than he cared to remember.

“You are welcome to join the senior crew in the mess for dinner,” James lied, smoothly. “If, of course, you do not wish to join the junior crew instead.”

He smiled at their reactions. Had they expected room service? The Captain was the only person on the ship who was allowed to eat meals in his cabin — even Admirals had to eat in the wardroom with their staff. But the reporters seemed to think they should be allowed to eat apart from the crew.

His smile grew wider. Just wait until they encountered naval food.

Ted looked up at the holographic display, silently cursing the First Space Lord under his breath. Being granted an international rank — a honour held by only a handful of officers, only one other of them British — came with an additional salary, but it also came with new and unpleasant responsibilities. The twenty-seven starships currently assembled around Ark Royal represented eight different navies, only three of them solid British allies. The remainder were deeply suspicious of the combined defence command’s decision to assign them to the deep-space raiding mission.

They had reason to be suspicious, Ted decided, as he surveyed the ships. Most of them were younger than Ark Royal, but hadn't been updated as thoroughly as the massive carrier. Their heavy armour would give them an advantage against alien starfighters — although probably not the giant plasma weapon the aliens had used in the previous battle — but their drives and weapons were heavily outdated. Ark Royal was a lumbering brute of a ship, yet a handful of the smaller ships weren't even capable of keeping pace with her. If it had been up to him, Ted knew, most of them would have been broken down into spare parts and replaced with more modern ships.

The only real advantage, he knew, was the older weapons they carried. Unlike the newer designs, they had the fittings for mass drivers and adding them onto their hulls hadn't taken more than a few days. Ted hadn't been too surprised to discover that several governments had stockpiled mass drivers, despite the unspoken agreement against deploying them. The older ships also carried additional missile racks, all of which might come in handy when they faced the aliens for the second time. But they were still critically low in starfighters.

Ted sighed, then looked down at the latest update from the Admiralty. No one seemed disposed to cut loose a modern carrier, not even one of the freighters that had been hastily reconfigured into a makeshift starfighter platform. Not that that was entirely unwelcome, he decided; the makeshift platforms had been constructed so rapidly, with so much improvising, that they could barely launch a single squadron of fighters and then only at a terrifyingly slow rate. But with modern carriers suddenly very vulnerable, it was hard to blame the Admiralty — and its foreign counterparts — for clutching at straws.

He needed a drink. Desperately.

The door chimed. “Come.”

Commander Fitzwilliam strode into the cabin, looking like a man in desperate need of a drink. Ted knew precisely how he felt. Passing the reporters over to Commander Fitzwilliam had been a mean trick, but Ted was damned if he was wasting any of his own time on the reporters. Besides, he had to speak with his new subordinates, reassure them as much as possible that he had no intention of wasting their lives, then plan their deployment to New Russia. The direct route, he’d already decided, was out.

“The reporters are settled in their cabins,” Commander Fitzwilliam said, taking the chair Ted indicated. “They're already grumbling about the arrangements.”

Ted shrugged. It was hard to care, not when most of his pre-Ark Royal career had been spent in shared cabins and wardrooms.

“Some of them might have had prior relationships,” he said, after a moment. “They can change their sleeping places, if they wish.”

“They’re reporters,” James agreed. There were stories about how reporters sometimes behaved while on deployment. Most of them were probably nonsense, but Ted was old enough to know the more outrageous the story, the greater the chance there was a kernel of truth in it somewhere. “If they want to have foursomes and tell themselves they’re being daring to have them on a military ship…”

Ted snorted. “I’ve spoken to our new allies,” he said. “We’re going to be going the long way around.”

He tapped the control, bringing up the planned route. It would take them by a couple of human settlements, but otherwise the star systems in question were largely useless. No commercial pilot would sign off on such a course — it would burn up too much of their power cells — yet Ted didn't have to worry about that, not during wartime. If they were lucky, it would allow them to evade enemy pickets until they actually reached New Russia.

And if we’re not lucky, he told himself darkly, we could find ourselves in some real trouble.

He looked up at the tramlines. Human-accessible tramlines were marked in green, but prospective alien tramlines, marked in red, ran through them like an infestation. Given a struck of luck, the aliens could see them coming and set up an ambush… or simply prepare the defences of New Russia. So far, they hadn't shown much interest in other human worlds in the same direction, but that was probably because the worlds were effectively worthless from a military point of view. Whatever they had in mind for humanity could wait until after the end of the war.

“Understandable,” Commander Fitzwilliam agreed. “But I wish we knew more about what was happening at New Russia itself.”

Ted nodded. So far, according to the Admiralty, the Russians had tried to slip a handful of ships into the system. But none of them had reported back. The aliens were clearly very good at locating intruders and picking them off before they could get back to the tramlines.

“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”

Kurt strode into the briefing room… and stopped, in surprise, when he saw some of his pilots gathered around a blonde girl who looked too thin to be real. One of the reporters, he realised, remembering that some of them had requested permission to attend the briefings. Sighing, Kurt walked to the podium and whistled, loudly. A little shamefaced, his pilots turned back to face him.

“I see you’ve met our new friend,” he said, softly. “However, I’m going to have to tell you to put her out of your minds. We have a great deal to cover and not much time.”

He scowled from face to face until he had their attention, then continued. “First, a warm welcome to the newcomers, who have finally arrived. Not their fault, I hasten to add, but we’re having to reorganise the squadrons while en route to our target and that’s going to be a pain in the butt. The new squadron rosters are posted on the datanet; I've appointed brevet squadron leaders from the more experienced pilots to take command.”

There was a long pause. “Seniority alone was not counted,” he added. None of the newcomers had any experience facing the alien starfighters. “If any of you have a problem with it, go tell the XO you want to spend the rest of the cruise in the brig and save me some time.”

He met Rose’s eyes briefly. He’d spoken to her already, telling her that she would be one of the new squadron leaders. Thankfully, she'd accepted the challenge without demur. Ted wasn't sure if she was completely reliable, but she did have experience and she needed something to focus on, beside her desire for revenge.

“We have updated simulations based on our previous encounter with the aliens,” Kurt continued, in a calmer tone. “After this meeting, we will go straight into them and spend the next few hours practicing, practicing and practicing. If there are problems, I would prefer to discover them in the simulator than actual flying. We will continue simulations even when we’re on the way, apart from one squadron that will maintain a permanent CSP around the flotilla. The aliens may surprise us at any moment.”

The pilots didn't look happy at the reminder. Kurt couldn't really blame them. One squadron wasn't really enough to provide cover for the flotilla, even if the flotilla was armed with rail guns and improved sensor programs that should give the aliens a nasty shock. Ideally, the other pilots would be able to rush from the simulators to their starfighters within minutes, but even their best timing wasn't ideal. When they got closer to New Russia, they’d have to abandon the simulators and remain on combat launch alert.

He made a show of glancing at his watch. “We start simulating in five minutes,” he said, raising his voice. “Anyone not there when I arrive will be buying the drinks.”

The room emptied, rapidly. Kurt allowed himself a smile as he saw the reporter’s bemusement. The pilots might have allowed themselves to chat her up, but not when their wallets were on the line. Kurt hadn't been joking when he’d told them that any latecomers would be buying the drinks, next time the pilots went on leave. The costs could easily reach a few hundred pounds.

“You can watch, if you like,” Kurt said, “but do not interrupt.”

The reporter looked up at him. Up close, she was so emaciated that Kurt seriously considered dragging her to the doctor and asking for a check-up.

“I won’t interrupt,” she assured him. “But can I ask for an interview later?”

Kurt met her eyes. There were tiny flecks of gold in them, hidden recording systems that would record everything she saw. Kurt had seen similar systems used by investment bankers, although their systems were different. He wondered, absently, just how the reporter found time to review everything she recorded.

“Maybe,” he said. “But it depends on my schedule.”