The Nelson Touch

Chapter Twelve

“Jump,” Fitzwilliam ordered.

Ted braced himself as Ark Royal’s Puller Drive activated, jumping her down the gravity tramline to Terra Nova. There was a faint feeling of unease, then a shock that was beyond description, then nothing at all. But, on the display, the stars had changed. They had hopped 10.5 light years in a split second.

“Launch probes,” he ordered. Terra Nova was supposed to be safe, but the divided world was on the direct route to New Russia. The aliens would be fools if they didn’t have the system under covert observation. “I want to know if there is anything nearby.”

The seconds ticked away as the remaining ships in the fleet came through, one by one, their sensors and weapons already active. Ted doubted the aliens had managed to get a battlefleet alarmingly close to Earth without being detected, but he had no intention of skimping on tactical precautions. If nothing else, skimping on precautions was a dangerous habit when the universe was suddenly a great deal less safe than it had been a year ago. But then, it was quite clear that the aliens had spent years observing humanity. They’d certainly tailored their attack fleets to match and overwhelm humanity’s active duty ships.

Good thing they didn’t take you seriously, old girl, he thought, rubbing the command chair affectionately. Or they would have taken us out too.

“Space appears to be clear,” the sensor officer said, finally. “No traces of any active starships or spacecraft until the asteroid belt, sir.”

Ted nodded, although he knew not to take that for granted. A single starship, it’s drives and sensors stepped down to the bare minimum, would be almost completely undetectable. The aliens could have a ship within a few thousand kilometres of the human fleet, if they were prepared to take the risk of being detected by a radar sweep. But the odds against detection were still staggeringly high, while the radar sweep would be picked up by passive sensors right across the star system.

“Probably smugglers or illicit miners,” Lopez said. She sounded more than a little amused at the concept, which made sense. Her grandfather had grown up on such a colony. “The system still hasn’t managed to sort out mining rights.”

Ted nodded. The star systems held by the major powers belonged to them, at least once they had assembled the firepower to enforce their claims if necessary. But Terra Nova, a perpetually divided world, had no unified defence force, let alone an authority that could speak for the entire planet. There was nothing to stop miners from poking through the asteroid belt for anything interesting, or squatters to set up their own colonies far from the planet’s atmosphere. But, compared to the growing industry of Sol, Washington or Britannia, the asteroid belt was almost completely undeveloped. Terra Nova, close enough to Earth to take in hundreds of thousands of prospective settlers, was fast becoming a galactic backwater.

“Send our IFF to the blocking force,” he said. A handful of frigates, mainly from the smaller powers, had been stationed in the system to watch for any large-scale alien intrusion. “And copy it to the planet. We may as well try to avoid a diplomatic incident.”

He settled back in his command chair and reviewed the reports. All ships had jumped safely, he noted, without any major problems. Good… but the real test would come when they tried using the alien-derived systems. Fortunately, Terra Nova had a tramline that would suffice for their first experiment. And, with so little development in the system outside the planet itself, there was no real chance of being observed as they tested the tramline.

“Picking up a response from the blocking force,” Lopez said, after seventeen minutes had ticked by. “They wish us luck.”

“Good,” Ted said. He finished looking through the reports, then turned his attention back to the display. “Take us towards the preset coordinates.”

He watched, grimly, as the fleet settled into motion, the frigates fanning out ahead as they searched for prospective targets. If there was an alien scout watching them, Ted suspected the enemy CO would try to sneak close to the fleet, just to get some hard readings on ship numbers and capabilities. The frigates would try to discourage such tricks, although Ted had few illusions about their long-term effectiveness. Given a sufficiently careful commander — if the enemy had commanding officers as humanity used the term — they could probably get close without being detected.

“We just picked up several separate signals from the planet in quick succession,” Lopez reported, breaking into his thoughts. “Two of them invite you and your staff to dinner, three more demand payment for using the tramline and one orders us to turn back and leave the system.”

Ted rolled his eyes. Terra Nova simply didn’t have the firepower to enforce its claim to the tramlines, nor could it force the fleet to retreat. Besides, if they had tried, it would have drawn the ire of all major spacefaring powers. Terra Nova was not in any position to be allowed to block access to its tramlines, not when three major worlds needed access to remain in touch with Earth.

That might change, he thought. If the alien drive is duplicated in large quantities, we would no longer be so dependent on tramlines we thought fixed.

He smiled at the thought, remembering some of the delighted raving from military and civilian scientists who’d studied the alien drive. They’d told him that the aliens were geniuses for understanding the implications of tramlines… and yet, that their technology didn’t seem to go far enough. Indeed, given enough time, they might even be able to produce tramlines on demand. Ted suspected that it would be years before it became possible, but if it did… it would revolutionise interstellar transport.

Lopez cleared her throat. “Will there be a response?”

“No,” Ted said. It wasn’t Royal Navy policy to respond to absurd demands. Besides, he had a feeling it was just posturing and nothing else. Terra Nova’s various governments would have to be insane to start a conflict with the rest of humanity in the middle of an interstellar war. “Just log their transmissions in the ship’s log.”

“Yes, sir,” Lopez said. She paused. “The CAG is requesting permission to continue training exercises.”

Ted hesitated. He would have preferred to keep his starfighters ready to launch, just in case the aliens did show up, rather than recall training flights and rearming them under fire. The aliens might not realise that the human starfighters weren’t armed with live weapons, but they’d certainly take advantage of it once they realised the truth.

But they did need to keep exercising the starfighter squadrons. And there was no substitute for actual flight experience.

“One squadron only,” he said, finally. “The remainder are to stay at combat readiness.”

“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.

“And contact the other carriers,” Ted added. “If they want to launch a squadron of their own for exercises, we will be happy to accommodate them.”

“Ten dollars says the Black Knights kick ass once again,” the Rhino said, from where he was standing next to the display. “Overpaid pretty-boys they might be, but they know their stuff.”

“Pity they’re not going up against the Few,” Charles countered, tightly. The Rhino had been quietly ragging on the Royal Navy’s pilots since the first humiliating defeat. But then, the new pilots were trainees and the Black Knights were an experienced squadron. It would have been more worrying if the trainees had won their first battle. “Or one of the squadrons we had before we returned to Earth.”

The Rhino shrugged. “We were all young once,” he said. “I trust you’ve had a chance to examine the deployment plan?”

Charles smiled. Calling it a deployment plan was an exaggeration; there were simply too many variables for true planning. The Rhino’s plan was, at best, a handful of half-formed objectives. But then, the various ground forces committed to Operation Nelson were trained to adapt and overcome unexpected surprises. They’d give the aliens a very hard time indeed, if it came down to fighting on the ground.

“It’s chancy,” he said, “but it should work as long as the politicians don’t get their hands on it.”

The Rhino smirked. “Or the fleet officers?”

“Admiral Smith never questioned my plans,” Charles said. “But, to be fair, we didn’t have a major deployment of ground troops, just a couple of hundred Royal Marines.”

He looked down at the deployment plan and sighed, inwardly. Jumping into an unknown situation was always dangerous, all the more so when the enemy was alien, had responses that didn’t seem quite human and possessed advanced technology. But there was no way to gather much information in advance. The Rhino intended to shoot stealthed probes ahead of the fleet, yet they knew the limitations on the systems. It was quite possible that they’d find out about the alien defences and combat force deployments when they crashed into the planet’s atmosphere.

Or maybe they will just go underwater and assume we can’t follow them, Charles thought. It might be the best thing they could do.

He looked up at the Rhino. There were few occupations these days, not when punitive strikes were considered more effective than trying to rebuild a foreign country from scratch, but the Royal Marines had worked hard to keep their knowledge base up to date. It was hard occupying a country full of humans, yet he was sure it would be worse if they tried occupying an alien world. They couldn’t even tell the aliens to behave themselves!

“We should probably try to avoid alien cities as much as possible,” he said. “That’s what they did on New Russia.”

“We still need to get our intelligence,” the Rhino replied. “There’s no way we can afford to avoid the alien cities.”

Charles winced, but nodded. He knew the Rhino was right.

“No ships within detection range,” the sensor officer reported. “I can’t even pick up any illicit settlements.”

“That would defeat the purpose of such settlements,” James said, dryly. He keyed his console, calling Anderson. “Engineering?”

“The modified system is online,” Anderson said. “But I can’t vouch for it behaving itself indefinitely. The whole system is a jury-rigged kludge built by civilians.”

“Understood,” James said. “I have every faith in you.”

The thought made him glare down at the display. He’d objected, strongly, when he’d taken a careful look at the planned route towards enemy territory. There would be at least one star system that was completely inaccessible by human tramlines, ensuring that Ark Royal would be stranded if her jury-rigged systems failed. And, perhaps, the other ships too. But the Admiral had been adamant. The aliens wouldn’t place so much importance on picketing a system they believed to be more inaccessible than Alien-1, where Ark Royal had visited on her previous cruise. James couldn’t argue with the logic, he knew, but being so isolated still worried him.

He keyed his console. “Admiral?”

“The fleet’s ready to follow War Hog,” Admiral Smith said. “We’ll go first, once the frigate confirms there’s no welcoming committee.”

James nodded. It was unlikely in the extreme that the aliens had managed to put a blocking force together, but he had to admit that they’d managed to surprise human starships as they came out of the tramlines before. If the frigate didn’t return, the whole mission would have to be reconsidered.

“We’re ready, sir,” he said. “Wish them luck from us.”

Ted sucked in a breath, then looked over at Lopez. She looked back at him, sweat shining on her dark forehead. Ted couldn’t blame her. Jumping into an unknown star system had always been tricky, even before the aliens had attacked Vera Cruz… and now, they were using a drive modified using principles humanity didn’t fully understand. His imagination provided far too many ways the experiment could go horribly wrong.

“Order War Hog to jump,” he commanded.

The tramline was a light red on the display, a warning that alien starships could emerge from it at any time. He watched as the frigate crawled towards the tramline, activated her drive and vanished, then waited, silently counting away the seconds. There should be two minutes, minimum, before the ship could return. More, perhaps, if the ship needed to evade incoming fire or adjust her position. If the tramline wasn’t entirely stable, or there had been a fluctuation in the drive, the ship might have been tossed out at speed or on a completely random vector. Or, worst of all, their drive might have burned out, leaving them stranded on the far side of the tramline.

“Two minutes,” Lopez said.

Ted braced himself, knowing that he would have to order a second frigate through the tramline if War Hog didn’t return. He couldn’t risk a larger ship, not even Ark Royal or the two small escort carriers. And what would he do, he asked himself, if they couldn’t get through the tramline or neither of the frigates returned? Go back to Earth with their tails between their legs?

There was a ping from the display. “War Hog has returned, sir,” Lopez said. “She’s undamaged.”

“Good,” Ted said, relieved. If they’d lost the frigate… he pushed the thought aside, annoyed with himself. “Send me a copy of her data.”

He glanced down at his console as the live feed streamed into view. The analysts would go over it in cynical detail, but all that mattered, right now, was that the frigate had made transit safely and that there were no traces of any enemy presence in the system. Nor was there much of anything, he saw; the star seemed to have nothing more than a handful of cosmic dust and debris orbiting at a distance. There were certainly no planets that might have attracted settlers.

“The system appears to be empty,” he said, opening a link to the command network. “However, we will proceed under stealth, on the assumption that the system is picketed, as we head towards the second tramline. Should we detect any traces of alien presence, we will — of course — attempt to avoid contact.”

He paused. “We will proceed through the tramline in the planned order,” he continued. He saw no reason to make any changes, not now. “I will see you on the far side.”

Closing the channel, he looked up at the display. “James, take us through the tramline,” he ordered. “And then prepare to launch starfighters if necessary.”

He settled back in his command chair as the starship advanced towards the tramline. There should be no sense of anything until they actually triggered the drive, yet he was sure he felt something as the carrier crossed the limit and entered the tramline. He looked over at the timer and braced himself, then felt the jump as the carrier hopped from one system to another in a split second. The display blanked, then started to display the take from the passive sensors. As far as they could tell, the fleet was the only intelligent life for light years.

A star system no human has seen before today, Ted thought, awed. It wasn’t an important system, hardly worth the effort of visiting… and yet it was completely new. History probably wouldn’t consider it as important as the first visit to Terra Nova, yet it was something that couldn’t be taken from his crew. He smiled as he considered the other advantages. And it has a tramline that skips past the front lines.

One by one, the fleet passed through the tramline and assembled at the RV point. Ted checked the records carefully, then sighed in relief as it became clear that the entire fleet had passed though safely. He issued a handful of orders, waited for the fleet to shake itself down into a rough formation, then settled back in his command chair. They’d take two days to reach the next tramline, at least on the course he’d preset, but there was no need to speed up. If the aliens were watching the system, they’d be looking for anyone trying to cross the system at speed.

“Take us towards the next tramline,” he ordered. “Alpha crews can rest; Beta crews are to watch for any signs of trouble, any at all.”

“Aye, sir,” Fitzwilliam said. There was a hint of irritation in his tone, a droll reminder that Ted was stepping on his toes. “We’ll get what rest we can, sir.”

Ted looked down at the deck, embarrassed. “Please do,” he said, trying to apologise silently. “And inform me if anything changes.”

Fitzwilliam glanced at his display. “We could detail a frigate to take a look at the asteroids here,” he said, after a moment. “They could play host to an alien settlement.”

“They could,” Ted agreed. There were quite a few human settlements in otherwise useless star systems, settlements established by people who just wanted to be left alone. For all they knew, the aliens had people who felt the same way too. Part of him wanted to check, just to be sure, but there was too high a chance the frigate would be noticed. “But I don’t want to run any risk of detection.”

“Understood,” Fitzwilliam said. He changed the subject, carefully. “Admiral, please make sure you get some rest.”

Ted scowled. He would have preferred never to leave the CIC, at least until they returned to Earth. But he knew it was impossible, no matter what stimulants he took. He’d just grow more and more exhausted until he started snapping at officers, or collapsed or the ship’s doctor relieved him of command.

“I’ll be in my office,” he said. At least he’d had the foresight to have a comfortable bed installed in one corner of the compartment, even if it was a little undignified. “And make sure you get some rest too.”

“I will,” Fitzwilliam promised.

Ted smiled. No doubt Commander Williams would make sure of it.