But what else did they know? If they had time to go through everything on New Russia, they probably knew just how vital Earth was to the unified defence force. And then…
“Captain,” Lightbridge said, “we are approaching the second tramline.”
Ted pushed his morbid thoughts aside. “Understood,” he said. “Power up the Puller Drive, then jump us to our next destination.”
He forced himself to remain calm as the universe darkened once again, before snapping back to normal. This time, there were no major settlements in the system. The early survey parties had found nothing of interest, beyond a handful of comets, and nothing had turned up since to make the system more interesting. But that didn't stop it being useful. Four different tramlines ran through the system, allowing it to serve as a transfer point for interstellar shipping. The corporation that had laid claim to the system did a roaring trade in supplies, including some that were technically illegal elsewhere. None of the major interstellar powers wanted to intervene, not when it might have provoked a major confrontation.
“Transit completed, sir,” Lightbridge said.
“Very good,” Ted agreed. “Take us to the next tramline.”
He looked back down at his console, reading the updates from the departmental heads. There didn't seem to be any major problems, thankfully, which meant that they were as close to being ready for action as they were ever likely to get. But if the First Space Lord was wrong… Ark Royal might miss out on the war entirely, then find herself forced to flee. Rumour had it that some ships were already taking colonists — and a small industrial base — well away from the aliens. But rumour was unreliable at the best of times.
They’d have real problems maintaining that technological base, he thought. Or of choosing the colonists, when the time came to leave.
Tapping a switch, he brought up the First Space Lord’s modified chart, showing the tramlines he believed the aliens could use. Ted saw his logic, but the whole conclusion rested on a dangerous gamble. What if the aliens had tricked the human observers? Or what if their tech was vastly more advanced than anyone had realised? Hell, what if they’d managed to escape the tramlines entirely?
We'd be dead, he thought. Escaping the tramlines was the holy grail of human gravitational research. If that happens, the war will be lost completely…
Shaking his head, he brought up another piece of analysis, but rapidly realised that it was worse than useless. There was no hard data on the aliens, so speculations on their psychology and motivation were pointless.
We know they want to kill us, he thought, dryly. That's the important detail. Everything else is immaterial.
Chapter Nine
No one had bothered to give the system a name, not even the miners who had flocked to the asteroid cluster when a survey party had discovered that the asteroids were rich in raw materials. The brief wave of interest in the system hadn't lasted past the discovery of other sources in more habitable systems, leaving a handful of miners and settlers making a living from selling what they mined at low cost. According to the database, most of the settlers really wanted to isolate themselves from the rest of the human race.
It was hard to escape the feeling, James decided, that they had succeeded. If Ark Royal hadn't known the settlements were there, it was quite possible that they would have been overlooked. They were really nothing more than a handful of mined-out asteroids, closed ecosystems powered by solar collectors. There wasn't much room for expansion, he knew, but they could maintain their position for hundreds of years before they had to make some hard choices. By then, human space would have changed so radically that who knew what sort of society would greet them, if they chose to return home?
Ark Royal hung near the tramline to Earth — or where the tramline would be, if the Old Lady’s drive had been able to use it. Predicting where the aliens might go was easy enough, assuming that the First Space Lord’s calculations had been correct. There was certainly nothing else to interest the aliens; the settlements weren't worth the effort of destroying them, assuming that the aliens weren’t bent on total genocide. But if they were wrong…
He looked up at the display, seeing a handful of fast-attack frigates hanging close to the massive carrier. They’d arrived the day after Ark Royal, bringing updates from Earth, including records from a Russian starship that had remained concealed and watched as the aliens landed on New Russia. Apparently, the aliens had bombarded the planetary defence centres, but otherwise ignored the human population. James couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing. It was good, because it suggested that the aliens weren't bent on genocide after all, yet it was also bad because it prevented contact between humans and aliens. There was no hope of opening a dialogue that might result in peace talks.
Not that they have to worry, he thought, grimly. As long as they’re winning, they can dictate terms to us and we will have to bend over and take them.
“Captain on the deck,” the duty officer said.
James turned to see Captain Smith entering the CIC. The Captain looked galvanised, but — like the rest of his crew — he was clearly worried about what they were doing in the unnamed system. If they were wrong about the alien plans, they were quite likely to discover it the hard way, when they finally returned to Earth and found it under alien occupation. James was merely relieved that the Captain hadn't started to drink again. If he did, James would have to relieve him of command… which would almost certainly doom James’s career too.
“Captain,” he said. “We have finished deploying the decoys.”
The Captain nodded. They’d hashed out the possibilities endlessly, but one thing had been clear from the start. They would have to lure the aliens to their position, not gamble on the aliens appearing right next to them. Any planetary system, even one orbiting an insignificant red dwarf, was so vast that the odds against them being in the right place were staggeringly high. But if the aliens thought they had a valid set of targets…
“Activate them,” the Captain ordered. “And hope that they fool the aliens.”
James nodded. The drones were the most advanced decoys produced by human technology, but no one knew what the aliens would make of them. If their sensor technology was advanced enough, they would probably realise that the decoys weren't real carriers and give them a wide berth. Or maybe they would assume that the decoys were nothing more than a bluff.
He keyed a switch, activating the drones. Sensor ghosts appeared briefly on the display, showing the location of five modern carriers. Even knowing that the images weren't real, Ark Royal’s sensor crews had difficulty separating the illusions from reality. Hopefully, the aliens wouldn’t question what they saw.
“They won’t see any starfighters,” he warned. “Or, rather, they won’t see enough starfighters.”
The Captain shrugged. Ark Royal carried four wings of starfighters; a modern carrier could carry ten, along with a small armada of smaller craft. There was no way their four wings could pretend to be the fighters attached to five modern carriers, but if they were lucky the aliens would assume that the remaining fighters hadn't been launched. Or maybe they would think that the human carriers were trying to retreat…