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He glanced at his watch. The entire battle had lasted no longer than fifteen minutes, from first detection to the destruction of the second battlecruiser. As always, it felt as though it had taken hours, if not days, to win the fight. The rooks were going to have real problems adjusting when they returned to the ship, he knew. No matter how good the simulators had become, they never quite matched actual combat. The awareness that one could die at any moment was lacking.

“Yes, sir,” Fitzwilliam said. He paused, looking down at his display. “Their tactics made no sense.”

Ted shook his head. “I think they made a great deal of sense,” he said. “Their cruise through our formation let them get solid data on just how many ships we have.”

He winced. The aliens had clearly underestimated the task force rather badly. Unless they could produce carriers far quicker than any human power, they’d just lost a carrier for nothing, apart from a handful of human starfighters. It was no trade, he knew, which suggested the aliens hadn’t realised what they were facing until it was too late to back out. And they’d definitely tried to retreat once they’d realised what they were actually facing…

“So we have to assume they forwarded word to a reception committee further up the chain,” he said. The aliens would have forces assembled at nodal positions, assuming their doctrine matched humanity’s on that point. Those forces would either defend Ted’s target or advance to intercept Ted and his fleet before it could reach the targeted system. “We can no longer hope the aliens don’t know we’re coming.”

“Yes, sir,” Fitzwilliam said, once he’d worked through the logic. “Those poor brave stupid bastards. They gave up their chance to take out a carrier in exchange for intelligence.”

Ted shrugged. “So it would seem,” he said. He leaned forward, feeling tiredness threatening to creep over him and drag him down into sleep. “We will continue towards our target, I think. The alternative is to concede defeat now and fall back towards Terra Nova.”

He noticed Lieutenant Lopez looking alarmed and quirked an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

“You’ll need to discuss it with the Council of War, sir,” she warned. “It’s in the contingency plans.”

“Bugger,” Ted said. He was too tired to say anything worse. “We wouldn’t have this problem if we’d just used British ships.”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed.

Ted nodded. “I’ll talk to the other Captains,” he said. “Until then, we will proceed.”

“Yes, sir,” Fitzwilliam said. “Do you want to continue to use stealth?”

Ted considered it. The aliens had a rough idea of where they were — now — and could probably extrapolate a rough idea of where the task force would emerge from the tramline into its target system. Losing stealth would allow them to move faster, but also allow the aliens time to prepare a reception committee in just the right place to catch them as they jumped through the tramline.

“Yes,” he said. “We have no idea what might be ahead of us, after all.”

He looked back at Lopez. “Set up the conference call,” he ordered. He noted she looked as haggard as he felt, unsurprisingly. She’d been on duty for hours before the alert sounded. “And then get some rest yourself. You’re going to be very busy later today.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Chapter Eighteen

It was nearly an hour before Henry was able to get away from the barracks and make his way to the observation blister. His thoughts and emotions were so jumbled that he hadn’t been sure what to think or say; they’d won the battle, they’d given the aliens a defeat they wouldn’t forget in a hurry… and yet Samantha was dead, along with four others he didn’t know as well. It didn’t seem worth it, somehow.

The memories of their shared training were bitter now. Samantha had been one hell of a joker, playing pranks on the other training groups after she’d been lectured, quite sharply, on the dangers of playing pranks on her comrades. And she’d been sweet and funny… if they hadn’t been warned, in no uncertain terms, of the bar on relationships between pilots, he might have tried to court her. But it would have floundered when she discovered the truth, he was sure. She hadn’t had a personality that could tolerate being trapped in the goldfish bowl of Buckingham Palace.

He stepped through the hatch and closed it… and realised he wasn’t alone. Someone — Janelle, he realised — was lying on the deck, staring up at the stars. She looked hauntingly beautiful compared to some of his comrades, although nowhere near as striking as some of the women from Sin City. The training officers had warned them that some of those women were on semi-legal contracts from the Third World, but it had been hard to care. All the pilots had really been concerned about was sowing their wild oats before they returned to active duty.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she looked over at him. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s all right,” she said, sitting up and brushing her hair out of her eyes. “I just came here to relax.”

Henry nodded, then found a seat and sat down, staring up at the stars. They looked peaceful and utterly unmoving… it was strange to realise that he’d just fought a savage battle amongst them, against aliens who would happily have killed him if they’d had a chance. But the aliens didn’t give a damn about him personally, he knew. They had never shown any interest in human societies. It wouldn’t matter to them that they’d come far too close to killing one of the heirs to the British crown.

But his own thoughts still tormented him.

She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Henry hesitated. He’d looked her up on the fleet’s database and discovered she was the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant. It had been impossible, with Augustus’s level of clearance, to discover if she had really earned the job or if the Admiral wanted her around for less savoury reasons, but she clearly held his trust. Had he asked her to keep an eye on him, he wondered, or was their acquaintance just a coincidence? In her own way, she was probably as isolated as he would be, if he served under his true name.

“I’m not sure,” he said. Confessing to any sort of weakness in front of his fellow pilots would be fatal, he knew. At the very least, they’d mock him relentlessly for weeks. “Should I talk about it?”

A Flag Lieutenant was in an odd position, he recalled from his studies. On one hand, she was her commander’s assistant, confidante and general gofer; on the other, she was still a lieutenant and badly outranked by most of the people she had to deal with on a regular basis. And her very closeness to the Admiral would make it difficult for her to make friends amongst the rest of the crew, particularly now that two-thirds of the crew hadn’t served on the Old Lady until after her return to Earth. It was possible, quite possible, that all she wanted was a friend.

But it was also possible that she’d picked up on something and deduced the truth.

“It sometimes helps,” Janelle said, after a long moment. “And I won’t tell anyone, unless it presents a threat to the ship’s security.”

Henry snorted, then returned his gaze to the stars. “I killed today,” he said. “Four aliens died at my hands. I know they would have killed me first, but I still feel… awkward about what I did.”

Janelle considered it. “They would have killed you,” she said, seriously. “And they would have killed everyone else on the ship if they had managed to break through the armour.”

“True,” Henry agreed. Word in the barracks was that one of the aliens had rammed the carrier, just to clear a hole in the armour for his comrades. The human pilots hadn’t been able to decide if the alien had been a brave… well, alien or just an idiot. “But I still feel odd.”