“You’ll have all the time you want,” the Prime Minister said. “I don’t think I need to tell you, any of you, that this is immensely important. We cannot afford a defeat.”
James nodded, silently admiring the man’s nerve. Sending even a small number of carriers to take the offensive risked denuding the defences of Earth. If the operation failed, or the aliens mounted their own offensive before they realised that Ark Royal was in their rear, it could get very sticky. He had a feeling that quite a few politicians had argued for an attack on New Russia instead. But, at best, that would only liberate the planet. It wouldn’t threaten the alien homeworlds.
“We won’t let you down,” Admiral Smith said. James knew him well enough to tell that he wasn’t as confident as he sounded. Even if everything went according to plan the operation would still be very tricky to pull off successfully. “Does the operation have a name?”
The First Space Lord smiled. “Operation Nelson,” he said. “I thought it was fitting.”
Chapter Three
“They look so young,” Squadron Commander Rose Labara muttered.
Wing Commander Kurt Schneider couldn’t disagree as he watched the trainees filing into the hall. A handful were older, merchant crewmen who had volunteered for service with the Royal Navy, but the remainder looked as though they should still be in school. He knew, intellectually, that the youngest of them were eighteen years old, yet his mind refused to grasp it. The boys looked barely old enough to shave, the girls looked as though they should be more interested in dresses and makeup than flying starfighters against the enemies of humanity.
He shook his head, feeling old. His son was seventeen and planning to join the Royal Navy next year; his daughter was only a couple of years younger. Kurt himself was old enough to have fathered most of the trainees; he’d steered them through the compressed training sessions, knowing that many of them would be dead before the end of the year. The Royal Navy had lost a third of its pre-war pilots in the war, including many Kurt had known personally. There was no reason to believe that it would improve in the years to come.
Oh, they’d learned a great deal about their enemy, he knew. They knew how the aliens fought, they knew how to counter alien tactics and technology… and yet there was still a quiet nagging doubt. The aliens had proven themselves to be cunning and deadly foes. Kurt suspected their recent inactivity was not through caution, but a desire to make sure they held the advantage once again before they started their advance on Earth. When they came, and they would, many of the young men and women in front of him would die.
He cast his eyes over the trainees sitting in the front row, the trainees who had scored the highest in simulation flying. Sonny, a young man with an unerring knack for pulling off impossible shots; David, a merchant crewman who made up in experience what he lacked in polish; Sandra, a young girl with a flair that impressed even Rose… and Charles Augustus, a young man with a permanent scowl on his face, yet possessing remarkable determination to crash through the course and win his flight wings. He’d earned them, Kurt conceded, and yet there was something about Augustus’s attitude that bothered him. Despite being his superior, he still knew almost nothing about the young man.
Rose elbowed him. “It’s time,” she said. “Go speak to them, sir.”
Kurt nodded and stepped up onto the stage. Five hundred pairs of eyes peered at him as he cleared his throat, wishing — once again — that he was better at giving speeches. The trainees didn’t know it, but the ceremony they’d earned had been cut short, just like the rest of their training. They deserved better, he knew, yet they wouldn’t get it. There were few resources available to mark their graduation in the midst of a war.
The Queen came to my graduation, he thought, sourly. But there are no Royals here.
“Three months ago, you entered the Academy,” he said. Over two thousand prospective pilots had entered the academy; three-fourths of them had washed out. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved the compressed system was still excluding the unsuitable or worried that they were expelling pilots who would overcome their flaws, given time. “Now, you have qualified as pilots. Your assignments to carriers or orbital support bases are already being selected for you.”
A low ripple ran through the gathered trainees. They’d been told, in no uncertain terms, that they wouldn’t be true pilots until they graduated. Now, with the course almost over, they could look forward to having their wings pinned to their uniforms and call themselves pilots.
“But you are still very young, very inexperienced,” Kurt continued. “You have not had the recommended number of hours in actual starfighters, no matter how many hours you have spent in the simulators. You have faced thousands of simulated aliens, yet you have faced no real danger during your training. And you have missed out on countless elements of the pre-war training program, everything from naval protocol to naval history.
“You will be assigned to units commanded by officers who have had all of that,” he explained. “They will also have had considerable experience with actually risking their lives in combat against the aliens. You would be well advised to learn from them, all of you, and not think that you are immortal and invincible. Because, I assure you, the aliens will happily take advantage of any overconfidence you happen to show.
“You have all done well,” he added. “Your presence here proves that, as I think you know. But you have a long way to go.”
He smiled at them. “Enough of that, for the moment,” he concluded. “If the first row would like to form an orderly line…?”
Rose passed him the bag as the front row lined up, producing a ragged line that looked alarmingly unprofessional. Kurt sighed inwardly — standards were definitely slipping — and then opened the bag, revealing the first set of flying wings. His own set were prominently mounted on his shoulder, a memento of his days in the Academy. No matter what happened, he knew, they could not be legally taken from him. Ideally, they would be passed down to his children after he died.
“Form a proper line,” Kurt said, in some irritation. “And try to remember to salute your senior officers when you meet them.”
He sighed at the thought. Military protocol, no matter what the civilians thought, was important. It helped to build up both discipline and comradeship between officers and enlisted crewmen. But the new pilots were very hazy on the finer points of protocol. A number of them had had to practice saluting for weeks before they had it down to a fine art, while their responses were often wrong or badly out of place. They meant well, he knew, but they were going to have a rough time of it. At least the discipline problems had been weeded out early in the training period.
“Congratulations,” he said, as Sonny stepped up to Kurt. He pinned the wings to Sonny’s shoulder, then shook the young man’s hand. “I believe your assignment is waiting for you.”
Sonny’s eyes went wide. “A carrier?”
“Wait and see,” Kurt said. Ideally, he would have preferred not to send any of the trainees to a carrier, not when they lacked true experience. But no one had bothered to ask his opinion, nor would it have mattered in any case. The Royal Navy was desperately short of pilots. “I think you will serve well, wherever you go.”
The next few pilots passed without a hitch, then Augustus arrived. Kurt pinned the wings to his shoulder, then blinked in surprise as Augustus leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “I earned this, didn’t I?”