“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.”