The Nelson Touch

Chapter Ten

“The new bombers seem to be working well,” Ted observed. On the display, they were launching their torpedoes a safe distance from the enemy starships. “But they’re still threatened by enemy weapons.”

“Yes, sir,” Lopez said. She glanced down at her terminal. “They do give us some additional striking power.”

Ted nodded. The missiles the bombers had once carried had been replaced by EMP-pulsars and bomb-pumped laser warheads. Humanity had produced hundreds of nukes a year even before the war, using them to push asteroids towards their destinations or heating up a pair of very cold worlds. Now, they were used — once again — as weapons of war. But Ted had a feeling that they were going to need many more nukes than humanity could produce before the war came to an end.

He sucked in his breath as the simulated aliens realised they were under attack and returned fire, spilling out tens of thousands of plasma bolts in the hope of wiping out the missiles before they made contact. Most of them missed completely, but the aliens were pumping out so much sheer firepower that it hardly mattered. One by one, the missiles winked out of existence, leaving only a couple to detonate and send laser bursts burning into the alien hull.

“We may need to launch pulsars first,” he said. “EMP screws up their plasma weapons, we know.”

He sighed. Humanity had adapted, reacted and overcome… but what were the aliens doing, only a handful of jumps away? The absence of any major attack since Ark Royal had returned home suggested they were planning something, even though some peaceniks dared to hope that the aliens had decided to sue for peace, now they’d taken a bloody nose. But the two attempts to make contact had ended in tragedy when the aliens had blown both of the peace ships out of space. Either they’d seen the transmissions as a challenge to do battle or they’d simply not been interested in talking.

Shaking his head, he turned to look at his Flag Lieutenant. “Draw up a plan for more overall exercises,” he ordered. “We need to prepare to adapt to new realities.”

He looked back at the display, just in time to see a flight of alien starfighters materialise from nowhere and fall on one of the American carriers like wolves on a flock of sheep. The Americans fought back savagely — this time, their armour could soak up alien fire — but it wasn’t enough. As soon as parts of the armour failed, the aliens concentrated their fire and blew their way right into the hull. Moments later, it was all over; the aliens scattered as the American carrier blew apart into flaming debris.

“We’ll also need to keep half our starfighters back for defence,” Ted observed. The Americans had weakened their fighter cover and paid the price. “Pity we can’t simply reconfigure the interior too.”

“Yes, sir,” Lopez agreed.

Ted looked down at the live feed from the umpires, who were monitoring the exercise from afar. The various national units had learned to work together, even though they were still a little shaky in places, but it hadn’t really mattered. No matter what they did, there was no evading the fact that five out of six carriers — seven out of eight, if the smaller carriers were included — were hellishly vulnerable. They’d just have to pray the aliens didn’t mount a serious attack. If there had been time to build more heavily armoured ships…

“The armour did hold up longer than expected,” Lopez said. “It’s a promising sign.”

“And what happens,” Ted asked reasonably, “when the aliens start producing better weapons? We already know they have a mid-range plasma gun. They might just improve the weapons their starfighters carry and then we’d be in real trouble.”

He sighed. “But we don’t have any other cards to play,” he added. “All we can do is keep working on the simulations and hope that the aliens don’t come up with any other surprises.”

“Yes, sir,” Lopez said.

Ted was still mulling over the problems when he summoned his senior officers to a conference, two hours later. This time, most of them attended via hologram, reluctant to leave their ships for even a few short hours. Ted didn’t really blame them. The aliens might launch an attack on Sol at any time, whereupon the fleet would be expected to go into battle as part of Earth’s defence force. There was no way to know if the aliens had the Sol System under observation, but Ted wouldn’t have bet against it. Humanity did it’s best to keep an eye on the New Russia system too.

“Our carriers are still strikingly vulnerable,” he said, once they had reviewed the results of the previous set of exercises. “We’re going to have to hold back nearly two-thirds of our starfighters to provide cover — and use drones to create false targets for the aliens. Even so, it’s going to be a major headache for us.”

It would be worse than that, he knew. If the aliens just came at them, without any regard for losses, the lightly-armoured carriers would be wiped out in one single pass. After that, the aliens would just concentrate their attacks on Ark Royal until the Old Lady was battered into scrap. It would happen, sooner or later, despite her armour. Or the aliens would come up with something new. He gritted his teeth at the thought.

“Then we have to keep them focused on their own defence,” Captain Bellerose said. “If we remain hidden, we might manage to get a striking force into attack range without being detected.”

“Perhaps,” Ted said, “but we don’t know just how capable the alien sensors actually are.”

“Then maybe we should reconsider the operation,” Captain Atsuko said. The Japanese officer looked uncomfortable as all eyes swung to him. “We agreed to take risks to win the war, or at least knock the aliens back on their heels, but not outright suicide.”

Ted concealed his private amusement. Japanese tactics in their wars had often been alarmingly close to suicide. Maybe they’d learnt something from two bloody defeats… or maybe they were merely concerned about losing one of their carriers. Edo might well be targeted by the aliens if they decided that Earth was too heavily defended to be worth attacking, at least until humanity had been weakened considerably. The Japanese couldn’t afford to lose a carrier for nothing.

“The operation is not suicide,” the Rhino boomed. “It is merely very dangerous. I don’t think any of us believed otherwise.”

Ted tapped on the table before the others could start taking sides. “We will continue to review our tactics,” he said. “In particular, we will work on forcing our pilots to work together…”

“It could have been worse,” Kurt said. “And we learned a great deal from our failures.”

He sighed, knowing that none of his superiors would be impressed. The rooks had learned the basics, true, but they hadn’t mastered the tricks experienced pilots had learned through actual combat. Most of the rooks had been killed, either through poor flight discipline or alien stealth. Fortunately, it had all been simulated. But he hadn’t hesitated to make it clear to the pilots that they couldn’t afford such losses in a real battle.

“It could have been worse,” Admiral Smith repeated. “What did you learn from your failures?”

“The rooks learnt that they needed more practice,” Kurt said. “We put them up against the American Black Knights, sir; the Americans wiped the deck with them, even though they were badly outnumbered. I think there won’t be so much grumbling in future about endless exercises.”

He sighed, again. It had been five days since the rooks had arrived and he’d spent far too much of his time monitoring their exercises, lecturing them on their flaws and waiting grimly for the first actual fatality. Somehow, he doubted the aliens would be the first to kill one of the rooks. It was much more likely that their inexperience would get one of them killed first, no matter what precautions he took.

“Keep working on them,” the Admiral ordered. “The Admiralty has been urging us to leave as soon as reasonably possible.”

Kurt swallowed. He hated to admit failure, but it might save lives. The rooks didn’t deserve to die when some of them had the makings of very good pilots. “Sir,” he said, “the rooks will not be ready for quite some time. Is there no way we can request more experienced pilots from the Earth Defence Force?”

“The Admiralty doesn’t want to give any of them up,” the Admiral said. “Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame them.”

“I know,” Kurt said. He’d been briefed on Operation Nelson two days after the rooks had arrived. Since then, he and his Wing Commanders had worked them so hard that several of the rooks had dreamed of flying starfighters in their bunks. But if nothing else, they were just too tired to have many discipline problems away from the cockpits. “But it’s going to get a large number of pilots killed.”

“Keep working on them,” the Admiral ordered. “We don’t want to lose any time for training before we leave.”

“Understood,” Kurt said. “When do you want to leave?”

“A week, no longer,” Admiral Smith said. “After that, I have a feeling the Admiralty will order us out anyway.”

“I’ll go back to training,” Kurt said. He half-rose to his feet. “With your permission?”

Admiral Smith nodded. “Keep me informed,” he said. “And watch everyone carefully.”

Kurt stood and retreated through the hatch.

“He’s right, Admiral,” James said. “We are in a worse position, training-wise, than we were before we headed to New Russia.”

Admiral Smith nodded, suddenly looking much more tired. “It can’t be helped,” he said, bitterly. “Everything we see at New Russia suggests the aliens are trying to build up overwhelming force and then come straight at Earth. They might well win, too, and if that happens we’re in deep trouble. If we can knock them off balance, just for a few short months, it might make the difference between victory and defeat.”

James scowled. He’d made an effort to catch up on international politics after chatting with his Uncle Winchester and he’d come to the conclusion that several nations didn’t want the British to hog all the glory. Or, for that matter, they didn’t want the aliens to take the time they needed to prepare themselves and attack Earth. Or… that they merely wanted the war to end before it destroyed the economy. Striking deep behind enemy lines would hopefully scare hell out of the aliens, perhaps even bring them to the negotiation table. And maybe it would even shorten the war.

He remembered some of the classified documents he’d accessed through the fleet’s datanet and felt his scowl deepening. No one had really expected to have to move to a wartime footing and the contingency plans, such as they were, had proved largely inadequate. British industry — and American, French, Chinese and Russian — had worked miracles, yet much more was needed to keep the human race in the war. Matters weren’t helped by the urgent need to share technology, design a shared class of carriers and battleships and a hundred other problems, each one needing to be massaged carefully into submission. There were quite a few people who would prefer the war to come to an end, sooner rather than later.

I’m one of them, he thought, bitterly. But the bastards won’t even talk to us.

“If,” he said. “Admiral, there’s one hell of a lot of work to do.”

“No arguments there,” Admiral Smith said. He paused, then smiled. “How are you enjoying command?”

James hesitated. “It’s a huge responsibility,” he said. “But I will cope with it, sir.”

“I hope so,” Admiral Smith said. “And our royal passenger?”

“Seems to be among the better rooks,” James said. “I read his file, then reviewed his progress in the training simulators. He definitely has talent, Admiral; he’d probably go far if he wasn’t a prince. But, at the same time, he’s got a temper and a massive chip on his shoulder. That will get him into deep trouble one day, sir.”

“Almost certainly,” Admiral Smith agreed. “If he’d gone through the normal course, he would either have been forced to straighten up by one of the upperclassmen or would have been regretfully sent back to civilian life. Hell, his attitude would make him an ideal Marine, once the chip was hammered off his shoulder. But he’s through the course and talented enough to be worth saving. If we can save him.”

James remembered his childhood and winced, remembering precisely what sort of little boy he’d been until his father had hammered some sense into his head — and the First Space Lord had chosen to deny his manipulations. His sense of entitlement hadn’t been fully abandoned until he’d realised just how close he’d flown to absolute disaster. In hindsight, he couldn’t help wondering if his family and the aristocracy had given him enough rope so he could hang himself with it.

“I can speak to him,” he said, softly. He could certainly muster a lecture for the young man who might be King. “Or I can bring Amelia and Commander Schneider into the secret. One of them could help to keep him in line…”

“No,” the Admiral said. He sounded firm enough that James decided it wasn’t worth trying to change his mind. “We don’t want to share the secret any wider than strictly necessary, James. The more people who know, the greater the chance of rumours leaking out.”

“We should be telling everyone,” James said, tiredly. “Let them all see that Prince Henry is on the front lines.”

He shook his head. “But then the Opposition would accuse the Government of trying to create a martyr,” he added. “Or of using Prince Henry for propaganda. Or of trying to pander to the people who think aristocracies are inherently evil.”

“It would also make it impossible for the prince to have anything resembling a normal life,” Smith said, quietly. “You know how crawling some people can become, don’t you?”

James flushed, embarrassed. “Yes, sir,” he said, quietly. His career had included quite a bit of nepotism. “But Prince Henry won’t have any real power, even if he becomes the King.”

“A word in the right set of ears can be quite effective,” Admiral Smith pointed out. “And not everyone really grasps how little formal power the monarchy has, even today.”

He met James’s eyes. “If worst comes to worst,” he said, “you can have a long chat with him and make him realise that if he wants to have his career, he has to damn well live up to it. And if that fails… well, there’s always the brig.”

“Sir?”

“I read up on Prince Henry after this bombshell was dropped in our laps,” Admiral Smith said, darkly. “I have a certain amount of sympathy for his position, but not enough to overlook any major disciplinary problems. And I’m damned if I’m risking lives just to let him play at being a starfighter pilot. He had his chance to walk away and blew it.”

James nodded. Traditionally, after the first month of military training, recruits were offered the chance to leave. Prince Henry — Charles Augustus, he reminded himself sharply — had chosen to stay. He could take the consequences of his decision.

Admiral Smith stood. “I’ll discuss the remainder of the training schedule with the rest of the officers,” he said. “Thankfully, none of them seem to want to stand on ceremony. Once we’re done, I think we’ll set our departure date as one week from now, as the Admiralty wants. And pray they don’t want us to leave sooner.”

“Understood,” James said. He changed the subject, slightly. “The drive modifications have been completed, at least.”

He winced at the thought. It would be hard for the aliens to burn through Ark Royal’s armour, but they would have no difficulty shooting off the modified drive systems which would allow the carrier to use the alien tramlines. Once they were gone, Ark Royal would be stranded deep within alien-controlled territory, dependent on searching out human-usable tramlines to escape. Somehow, he doubted the aliens would let them escape a second time.

“Let us hope that some of the promise really comes true,” Smith agreed. “If they do, the universe will change completely.”

James smiled. The human race had never really realised that the tramlines could be manipulated, but the aliens had developed their own systems for doing just that. Now that an alien drive system was in human hands, they were already talking about ways to improve on the alien tech, even perhaps manipulating a tramline so anyone coming down it arrived at a preset point. That alone, he knew, would change the face of modern warfare. Knowing precisely where the enemy would materialise would be a colossal advantage.

“I could use some of those promises,” he said. If they came up with something the aliens had missed, it would give them a very bloody nose. “But, for the moment, we have to play with what we have right now.”

The Admiral nodded, then walked towards the hatch and slipped out of the cabin. James felt an odd mix of wistfulness and guilt; once, his cabin had belonged to the Admiral. And he, like Prince Henry, had tried to get into Smith’s position through family connections. But the Prince had tried to hide his identity. It spoke well of him. James hadn’t come to realise the dangers in having so many connection until he was much older.

Poor bastard, he thought. He was honestly unsure which of the two he meant; himself… or Prince Henry. But at least he’s trying more than I ever did.

With that, he picked up the terminal and went back to his paperwork.