“Dave, Gus, Gladys and Mike, take the ready starfighters,” he ordered. “You're now classed as Beta Squadron. Everyone else in this compartment is part of Alpha Squadron.”
Rose looked irked — he’d effectively demoted her — but she looked too tired to argue in front of the others. If they made it home, Rose would probably be given a whole new starfighter squadron on a different starship, one where her experience could be passed on to starfighter pilots who had never even seen an enemy starfighter. Kurt allowed himself a moment of relief, then pushed it aside ruthlessly. Their relationship, their secret relationship, meant nothing. All that mattered was staying alive long enough to give the aliens one final bloody nose before they were overwhelmed.
“Alpha, go get a shower,” he added, after taking another look at the display and calculating the vectors in his head. The aliens, unless they sped up, would need at least two hours to overrun the carrier. By his assessment, the aliens were keeping tabs on their location rather than attempting to actually stop Ark Royal. “You all stink like…” — his imagination failed him — “a very stinky thing.”
“Same to you, sir,” Oxford said. “You shouldn't have worn your socks in the sleeping machine.”
It was a measure of how tried he was, Kurt decided, that he found himself giggling helplessly for several seconds. “Shower,” he snapped, when he could finally talk again. “Now.”
He watched them go, then looked over at Rose. “I understand,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed his lips hard, then strode past him into the shower. Kurt glared at her back, then forced his body back under control. She called back to him as her clothes hit the deck. “Come on, sir. The water’s fine.”
Kurt gritted his teeth, realising that he’d lost his detachment once and for all. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes off her, covering himself by scrubbing thoroughly at his feet and legs as the water ran down his body. As soon as he felt clean, he stepped back out of the shower, towelled himself down and checked the display. The alien battlecruiser hadn't moved any closer. Indeed, it seemed to have decided to match the carrier’s speed even though it could have easily moved a great deal faster.
It's precisely what we want them to do, Kurt thought, as he pulled on a clean flight suit. They’re being very obliging. And that’s what bothers us.
“Stay here,” he ordered, as the other pilots scrambled out of the shower, water running off their bodies. “If the alert sounds, go to your fighters at once.”
The hatch opened as he reached it, revealing Gamma Squadron’s pilots. They looked even more haggard than the other pilots, unsurprisingly. And they stank too, just like the others before they’d showered. None of them really cared to remain in the cockpits for so long.
“Have your showers, then get a nap,” Kurt ordered. “And then join the remaining pilots here.”
He walked down to his office, closed the door firmly and brought up the squadron rosters. It seemed absurd to be doing the paperwork now, when the aliens were tracking them, but it helped keep his mind off other things. He could record a message for Molly and the children, yet it was unlikely they would ever hear it. Or he could call Rose…
Angrily, he shook his head. The aliens were in hot pursuit. They couldn't afford to be caught with their pants down, not now.
Ted didn't feel much better after several hours in the sleep machine — Fitzwilliam had evidently decided to let him sleep longer than he’d planned - but one glance at the display was enough to reassure him that the alien battlecruiser was still keeping its distance from the carrier. Unfortunately, it had also launched a spread of drones of its own, ensuring that Ark Royal couldn't hide without being detected.
“We have a lock on several targets in orbit around the alien world,” Farley informed him, when he stepped back onto the bridge. A shave and a shower had made him feel much better about himself. “I don't think there is a major risk to the planet itself.”
Ted nodded, studying the reports from the drones. There were dozens of large structures in orbit, most of them clearly industrial nodes. But there were relatively few defences, as far as he could see. Was it possible, he asked himself, that some of the nodes were actually drones or ECM beacons? If human technology could fool the aliens long enough to let Ark Royal launch an ambush, why couldn't the aliens do the same?
“It’s impossible to be certain at this distance,” Farley admitted, when Ted asked. “”But they would have had to set up the trap well before we arrived in the system.”
“True,” Ted agreed. “Are you ready to open fire?”
“The mass drivers are armed and ready,” Farley said. “We can fire on your command.”
Ted nodded. Given the distance between themselves and the planet, they would be past the perfect firing location before they knew if they’d hit their targets or not. But it didn't matter, he told himself. If they missed, or if the alien point defence was sufficient to stop the projectiles, he had no intention of wasting any more. Besides, the aliens were unlikely to give them time to stop and reload from the local asteroid belt.
“Fire,” he ordered.
Long hours ticked away as the silent projectiles rocketed towards their targets. Ted watched, keeping one eye on the alien battlecruiser, until the first reports started to come back into the display. Four facilities had been hit and destroyed, seven had turned out to have a surprisingly heavy concentration of point defence weapons and two more were missed outright. Under the circumstances, Ted decided, it was the best they could reasonably hope for.
The alien battlecruiser showed no reaction, no inclination to accelerate and enter engagement range. Indeed, the distance it was keeping was safe by several orders of magnitude. Ted puzzled over it, wondering just what the aliens would think of a CO who didn't try to save the facilities. A naval officer would understand that there was nothing the battlecruiser could have done, but his civilian superiors would have complained loudly at the absence of any actual attempt to save the planet. They wouldn't understand the realities of naval combat… he wondered, with a sudden flicker of envy, if the alien government was composed of naval officers. God knew there was a human colony that believed that military service was the only way to gain the vote.
He turned back to look at the tramline, stretching out ahead of them. At this rate, the aliens would let them leave the system without interference… and he couldn't help, but wonder if that was what the aliens wanted the human ship to do. It was easy enough to project the destination of the tramline, yet there was no way of knowing what might be waiting for them at the other end. And, with a stealthed picket ship, the aliens would have plenty of time to note Ark Royal’s course and set an ambush.
“Prepare two more drones,” he ordered, looking over at Farley. “I want to cause as much confusion as possible as we come out of the tramline.”
It might be wasted effort, he knew. Given enough time, the aliens could have seeded space with beacons and detectors. But he had to try.
Shaking his head, he picked up the latest report from the doctors and started to read. The aliens were very alien, unsurprisingly. But there didn't seem to be any threat of disease, thankfully. God alone knew what would happen if the Admiralty believed Ark Royal to be compromised. They’d probably insist on flying the carrier right into the nearest star.