“But you did well,” he said, softly. “If you do as well as that when the time comes to fight, I will be pleased.”
Wang Lei, for the first time, showed a hint of emotion. “The government will disagree,” he said. “Losing ships in combat is not considered a good thing.”
Ted winced. The Chinese Government was completely impenetrable to outsiders — the précis he’d read hadn’t been able to decide if it was a dictatorship, a single-party state or a semi-democracy — but it definitely had one thing in common with the British Government. Losing a starship, no matter the situation, was something that had to be investigated thoroughly, just to make sure the commanding officer wasn’t at fault. He’d answered quite enough questions about the lost frigates during their last mission to know that such an experience could be unendurable.
“Losing the whole fleet would be worse,” Ted said. “But governments can be very unreasonable at times.”
The thought made him roll his eyes. He hadn’t been involved in the negotiations, but he’d heard there had been some real disagreements over the rules of engagement as well as the fleet’s command structure. If the Royal Navy had been bigger — much bigger — it would have been very tempting to insist that only British ships were dispatched to attack the aliens. But then, he understood the other problem too. Losing ships was bad enough, but losing them under someone else’s command was worse. No wonder the Chinese had been reluctant to commit a carrier to the fleet.
“They can,” the Chinese officer agreed. He smiled, suddenly. “But what do you think of the war?”
Ted hesitated, then did his best to answer. “I think we have to win, or at least force them to talk to us,” he said. “They certainly should be able to talk to us.”
Wang Lei shrugged. “I once had to spend time in Bahrain as part of a liaison mission,” he said. “They were dependent on us for their protection, yet their treatment of us seemed unaccountably rude until we realised that they were honouring their customs, rather than our own. Holding long dinners, never raising serious topics, seeking consensus on how best to proceed… it was how they acted, rather than us. Sometimes they lied to our faces because they wanted to save their own face.”
He smiled, rather dryly. “Perhaps, for all we know, the aliens need to be hammered before they will talk to us.”
“Perhaps,” Ted agreed.
Wang Lei nodded towards the Japanese officer. “In both of the wars between Japan and America, the Japanese had to have their faces ground in their defeat before they surrendered,” he said. “They had to have their defeat made very clear to them. The aliens might be the same.”
It sounded possible, Ted had to admit. But, at the same time, how could a race reach interstellar space with an attitude that made it impossible to accept defeat until it was pushed right to the brink of extinction? Japan’s casualties towards the end of the Second World War, both civilian and military, had been horrific, utterly beyond his comprehension. If the Americans had had to invade, as well as dropping additional nukes and perhaps even bioweapons, the survival of the Japanese as a people would have been in doubt. Their entire culture would have been destroyed beyond repair.
The Chinese officer leaned forward. “Humanity has several different ways of looking at warfare,” he added. “For all we know, a starship commanded by a rogue officer fired on an alien ship and started the war.”
“Babylon 5,” Ted recognised. British intelligence officers had dug through countless novels, movies and television programs, looking for ideas. Some of them had even proved workable in real life. “Or perhaps it was Doctor Who.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Wang Lei said. “The aliens might well be so completely alien that we cannot understand why they’re so angry at us. In that case, all we can do is fight until the threat has been destroyed. And everything else simply doesn’t matter.”
“I know,” Ted said.
He nodded politely to Wang Lei, then stepped away from him, feeling an odd moment of pity as another Chinese officer made a beeline towards Wang Lei. The woman was pretty enough, in an odd kind of way, but it was clear she was his supervisor, even though she was formally his subordinate. A political commissioner… Ted shook his head, tiredly. Even during the worst of the troubles, when the very survival of Britain had been called into question, there had never been any political commissioners. But the Chinese had kept the very old custom.
How, he asked himself, can anyone command when someone else is looking over his shoulder?
He could see, he supposed, the need to keep an eye on the officer’s political leanings. But how could they trust an untrained officer with the authority to override the Captain’s decision at the worst possible time? It was madness!
“Admiral,” Captain Fitzwilliam said. “I trust you are enjoying the party?”
Ted glowered at him. Fitzwilliam seemed to be handling himself perfectly, chatting to everyone and trying to make sure that no one was left out. It was part and parcel of growing up as an aristocrat… he sighed, then shook his head, wishing for a drink. He wasn’t cut out to be a sociable commander.
“I wonder if it’s too late to rule by fear,” he muttered, just loudly enough for Fitzwilliam to hear. “I am no good at these events.”
Fitzwilliam nodded. Ted eyed him, sharply.
“My brother was just the same once,” he said. “Mother used to make him go anyway, just to force him to get over it. And it worked. Besides, it’s just another form of combat.”
“Without the danger of getting blown up,” Ted said. “I could really get to dislike it.”
“Diplomacy,” Fitzwilliam said. “It’s important to make others feel appreciated.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Admiral,” Lopez said. “War Hog is ready to make transit.”
Ted nodded. The tramline that led towards the target system was dead ahead of them, seemingly unobserved. He had his doubts, but there was no evidence to suggest they’d been detected, merely an edgy feeling at the back of his mind. And that could easily have been the remains of his irritation at the party.
“Order her to jump as soon as possible,” he ordered, sitting back in his command chair. The odds were still strikingly against them having been detected. “And then to follow standard procedure.”
He watched, as emotionlessly as possible, as the starship vanished from the display and silently counted down the seconds until she re-emerged. This tramline should be compatible with standard human technology, he knew; the aliens would have no pressing reason not to keep an eye on it. But would they believe it to be out of humanity’s reach? There was no way to know for sure.
It was nearly nine minutes before War Hog reappeared. “Priority signal, Admiral,” Lopez said. “They detected definite traces of alien settlements.”
Ted sucked in his breath. He’d expected it, sooner or later, but it was still a shock. “Pass the data to the analysts, then share it with the other ships,” he ordered. “Was there any sign they were detected?”
“Negative,” Lopez said. “The fleet’s requesting orders, sir.”
“Order them to stand by,” Ted said. “We may need to rethink our approach.”
He keyed his console, accessing the data from the frigate. At such a distance, there was relatively little, but there were definite signs of alien presence. One nexus of radio signals, coming from a planet well out of visual range; several others, including a handful that probably came from starships in transit. And, he noted, three tramlines, including the one he’d probed. The system might not be of supreme importance to the aliens — there was no gas giant for mining, unless it was on the other side of the star — but the tramlines alone would give the system value.