“You’re her boss,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. “You could keep her busy, at least until we leave Target One behind.”
Ted nodded. There were two hours before they slipped through the tramline and re-entered the system. By then, it was quite possible that Force Two had realised the drones were nothing more than decoys and moved back into Target One themselves, hoping to intercept the fleet. And they would succeed. The only other way the fleet knew that would take them back to human space involved passing through the front lines.
“I think I will,” he said. “And you can let Kurt know to keep an eye on him.”
Henry barely noticed his surroundings as he made his way back to the starfighter ready room, caught up in a whirlwind of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. Control was one thing he’d learned early, but it was also something that frayed regularly as he came to grips with the reality of his situation. It just wasn’t fair! Why should he be treated as a role model for young men and women when all he’d done was choose the right set of parents? And why should he be condemned for doing something other young men did regularly? It wasn’t fair!
But the Admiral was right, he knew; he’d been selfish.
Bitter self-disgust threatened to overwhelm him as he paused, just outside the hatch. He’d wanted a normal relationship, he’d wanted a normal life, but he wouldn’t get either, no matter what he did. Even the Royals who had walked away from their titles were still hounded by the media, as if anyone really gave a shit what they did with their lives. Henry had no illusions any longer about the ravenous monsters men called reporters, subhuman vermin who fed on misery and created it wherever they went. Janelle’s life would be torn apart, dissected and then broadcast to the entire universe.
And what if she had something in her past that made her… unsuitable?
It had happened to his sister, Henry knew. His parents and the Privy Council had put their foot down, after the media had reported the facts to the world. Elizabeth had sulked for weeks afterwards, refusing to attend to any of her ceremonial duties — and how could he blame her? Her life had been torn apart because of something the media had discovered. But was anyone truly without sin?
Henry had few sins in his past, but then he’d always been aware that anything he did would be discovered and used against him. The ever-present threat of exposure had kept him under control, even as his father had retreated into his regal persona and his mother had become a neurotic mess. But what might Janelle be hiding in her past?
It might not even be a real sin, he knew. If she’d had a relationship with another woman, it would be used against her. After all, the Queen had to be willing and able to bear children. It was tradition. Anyone else could sleep with whoever the hell they wanted, at least as long as they were sixteen or older, but not the Royal Family. They had to pick their partners with extreme — and pointless — care.
He tried to compose a speech to Janelle, to tell her the truth, but found it impossible. What could he tell her? Would she think he’d been leading her on? Or would she become one of the crawling women who wanted to be Queen… and didn’t realise, until it was too late, that it was nothing more than a gilded cage?
Silently, he cursed it all under his breath. It just wasn’t fair.
Chapter Thirty-Six
If she realised that something had happened after the XO had dragged her lover away, Lopez showed no sign of it as she stepped into the CIC and took her seat near the Admiral’s command chair. Indeed, she looked remarkably happy — and young. Ted felt a stab of envy, remembering when he’d been that young himself, and then put the thought out of his mind for the moment. The Prince could talk to her after they escaped Target One, when they would have several days to come to grips with the sudden change in their relationship. Until then, it could wait.
“The fleet has checked in, sir,” Lopez said. “They’re standing by.”
“Good,” Ted said. The damage had been repaired as best as possible, but he was grimly aware that there was a large gash in the Old Lady’s armour — and the other carriers weren’t heavily armoured in the first place. “Order War Hog to make transit.”
He leaned back in his command chair as the frigate vanished from the display. As far as they could tell, they hadn’t been tracked as they’d sneaked through the alien-occupied system, but the aliens had been alarmingly successful in tracking them before. The analysts had wondered if the aliens, with their far greater understanding of gravity, had a way of monitoring tramlines at a distance, although it seemed impossible. But then, so much else the aliens had shown to humanity had been deemed impossible.
If they had perfect sensors, like something out of science-fiction, they’d have hunted us down by now, Ted thought, coldly. They can’t be much more advanced over us.
“War Hog has returned,” Lopez reported. “She’s detected hints that Target One is under siege.”
Ted nodded, relieved. If the aliens had successfully reasserted control over the high orbitals, they would have smashed the Rhino and his forces in short order. Hell, given how little use they made of the land surface, they could just have rained down projectiles at random, heedless of the damage they were doing. But if the planet was under siege, there was a chance to retrieve the groundpounders and escape before Force Two made its unwelcome reappearance.
“Take us through the tramline,” he ordered. “Best possible speed.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said. “Transit in five minutes.”
Ted waited as the display blanked out, then reformatted itself, displaying the familiar sight of Target One. He braced himself, half-expecting to encounter a welcoming committee even if the frigate had detected nothing, then settled back in his command chair as no enemy ships materialised. Data started to flow in from the handful of passive recon platforms they’d scattered across the solar system, but it was considerably out of date. At least the fleet train had survived without detection.
“Order them to remain where they are,” Ted ordered. By the time they received the message, the fleet would be halfway to Target One. “The Marine Transports are to prepare to pick up the soldiers as soon as we force our way into orbit.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted nodded, hastily running through calculations in his mind. They’d have to take the shortest route to the planet, which shouldn’t be a problem as all indications suggested they hadn’t been detected. But once they reached the planet, the aliens would scream for Force Two to come to the rescue. By his calculations, they would have less than five hours to re-embark the troops… assuming that Force Two didn’t arrive before Ted’s ships entered orbit. There were too many variables for him to relax comfortably.
He caught himself looking at the back of Lopez’s head as she turned away from him, working her console with grim determination. The Prince was a lucky man, Ted decided, despite his accident of birth. Maybe they would be happy together… angrily, he dismissed the thought. There was no time to think about it, not when a battle was about to take place. Instead, he looked down at the reports from the other ships, wondering just how much creative editing had gone into some of them. If it had been up to him, the damaged ships would have been withdrawn to a shipyard.