“Too risky,” he said, finally. “We can’t risk detection.”
“Understood,” Charles said, ruefully. Mining asteroids wasn't something his men had signed up to do, but it would make a break from assisting with repairs and watching the reporters like hawks. God knew that the reporters were still trying to make their way into secure compartments, despite being told — time and time again — that they were not allowed to enter without permission and an escort. “But we will have to mine the asteroids sooner or later.”
He nodded to the XO, then headed back to the barracks. Inside, he saw a handful of Marines wrestling and two more trying to catch up on their sleep. Rolling his eyes, he barked for quiet and issued orders. Another counter-boarding drill would keep his men out of mischief for a few hours. After that…
Better here than on New Russia, he thought. He’d gone through the sensor records carefully, but he had no idea if the Russians had made it to the surface or now. Instead, all he could do was pray that they’d made it — and that their fellow countrymen were prepared to meet them.
Shaking his head, he started to organise the drill. Everything else would have to wait until they returned home — or the aliens caught up with them again.
“There are only two known tramlines in this system,” Ted said, studying the display. “Four more, if the assumptions about alien capabilities are accurate.”
There was no disagreement from his senior crew. Barong — the crew were already muttering that the star should have been named Boring — was uninteresting, only really useful in times of peace, when a convoy could shave a few hours off the voyage to Vera Cruz. The Russians might have been able to stake a claim in later years, or perhaps someone would set up an independent trading facility and try to charge passage fees for anyone making their way through the system. They’d have to be careful, Ted knew. It wasn't as if Barong was important enough to force people to pay. They could simply detour around the system if necessary.
“Going back to New Russia would be extremely dangerous,” Ted added. “They will certainly have ramped up their sensor networks — and there are those ships patrolling the edge of the tramline. We may well jump straight into a trap. This time, they’ll be ready for us — and we are already short on starfighters and projectiles.”
He looked over at Anderson, who shrugged. “Unless the first survey of this system was rushed — and there is some evidence to suggest it was — there’s no hope of finding materials we can use to make additional nukes,” he said. “The asteroids appear to be bog-standard pieces of rock and metal, not rare elements.”
“Pity,” Fitzwilliam observed. “We taught them respect for our weapons, didn't we?”
“Yes,” Ted said. “But that will make them all the more determined to prevent us from returning to human space.”
He wondered, idly, if Ark Royal was the only starship carrying the modified weapons. It didn't seem likely. The Admiralty might well have outfitted other ships with the weapons — if there was one thing humanity had in abundance, it was nukes — and if the aliens launched another attack, they’d get a nasty surprise. But the aliens would still be hopping mad over the attack on New Russia.
“I have decided, therefore, that we will proceed down the tramline to Vera Cruz,” he added. “From there, we will jump into unexplored space and work our way around to a point where we can return to human space.”
“Captain,” Fitzwilliam said slowly, “that will add several months to our travel time — at best.”
“It will,” Ted agreed. It was the XO’s job to play devil’s advocate, no matter how annoying it could be. “However, does anyone feel that we have a realistic chance of sneaking back into the New Russia system without being detected?”
There was a long pause. No one spoke.
“Our orders are to return home and report in,” Ted continued. “However, right now, taking the direct route home is a form of suicide. Therefore, we will take the long route home — and, in addition, worry the aliens by probing the edge of their space.”
He smiled at their reactions, then explained his reasoning. The attack on New Russia made sense, the attack on Vera Cruz and the other colonies did not. Logically, the aliens should have saved their strength… unless there was a strong reason to remove the human presence on those worlds. The only answer that made sense to him was that the aliens had colony worlds within one or two jumps of Vera Cruz.
They might have encountered one of our survey ships, he thought. Survey ships set out for years at a time, rarely heading home early unless they discovered something truly spectacular. No one would notice if one of the ships was several years overdue, allowing the aliens plenty of time to dissect her and her crew. And they would have no trouble pulling a complete astronomical chart of the human sphere from her computers.
The thought made him scowl. Whatever the outcome of the war, procedures would have to be carefully revised in the face of First Contact. The survey ships would have to be escorted, their computers would need to be rigged for immediate destruction if another alien contact went bad and their crews would have to be outfitted with suicide implants. It would probably take years to devise the new protocols. God knew the first set, as inadequate as they were, had taken almost a decade of scrabbling before there was a version all of the interstellar powers could accept.
“We might run into stronger alien forces,” Fitzwilliam pointed out, finally. “They might well try to trap us.”
“They might,” Ted agreed. “The alternative is staying here, in hiding. Unless someone’s invented a much better FTL drive…?”
He smiled, then looked around the compartment. “Barring discovery, we will power up our drives two days from now and start inching towards the tramline,” he continued, bringing up the main display. “Should the aliens catch wind of us, we will throw caution to the winds and flee for Vera Cruz.”
“If they do,” Anderson observed, “they will almost certainly run us down.”
Ted nodded. No matter how hard Ark Royal and her escorts struggled, the faster alien ships and their starfighters definitely would overtake her if it came down to a straight chase. Ideally, he wanted to get to the tramline without being detected at all. But it might not be possible…
He shook his head. If they were lucky, they would escape without further harassment. But if they weren't lucky, they would just have to fight.
James couldn't help feeling enthused about the Captain’s plan, even though he knew that it was staggeringly risky. But if he’d wanted to avoid risk, he would have taken that slot in the Admiralty he’d been offered when he'd been promoted to Commander. It would have made him nothing more than a tea boy — one had to be a Commodore to gain attention at the Admiralty — but it would have been safe. Instead, he’d attempted to gain a promotion that would ensure he'd see combat.
How careless of me, he thought, as he strode through the starship’s passageway. He smirked at the thought. If I’d known where I was going, I might have applied to a modern carrier instead.
Another piece of carelessness, he knew, was failing to keep himself occupied to the point where he could decline the chance to meet the reporters with a clear conscience. Most of the work he had to do had either been delegated to subordinates — he'd hated being micromanaged as a junior officer and saw no reason to torment his subordinates, now he'd been promoted — or simply placed to one side. There was no point in writing out endless reports if no one was ever going to see them. And the only other duty that needed attention, sooner rather than later, was ticking off a handful of couples who had bent the rules on relationships onboard ship.