“I don’t think they’d actually get any flying done,” he said. “I don’t think they need to be in groups to think.”
“Maybe they can’t react to situations outside their orders,” Polly said. “I’ve seen academics, really clever men and women, have problems thinking when they’re forced to focus on something outside their subject. They have panic attacks and start trying to escape…”
“I’ve had officers who had the same problem,” Ted said. “They just can’t think when something happens outside their orders.”
He took a breath. “Do you think we can actually… make contact with the aliens?”
“I think we can build up a communications algorithm,” Polly said. “They may well have done their own research into communicating with us. In that case, we will have to match our efforts with theirs and see what happens. But if we can’t establish any meaningful dialogue…”
Ted nodded. If the aliens couldn’t be talked out of fighting, there would be no choice, but to fight the war to the bitter end. He thought of the test tube Doctor Russell had showed him and went cold. Were the aliens building their own biological weapons program? There were thousands of people with enhanced immune systems these days, mainly in the military, but would they survive whatever the aliens might use to exterminate the human race?
“Do the best you can,” he said, standing. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He’d need to shower and change before he went on duty in the CIC. “And let me know if you have any brainwaves that will make contacting them easier.”
“Of course, Admiral,” Polly said. She looked down at the table for a long moment, then looked up and met his eyes. “I don’t think they’re an evil race.”
“I agree,” Ted said. The aliens had passed up countless opportunities for brute slaughter until they’d attacked Earth. Had they actually meant to devastate humanity’s homeworld? “But they’ve done a lot of damage, Doctor. Even if we do manage to talk to them, coming to a peace agreement isn’t going to be easy.”
He nodded to her, then strode out of the hatch and walked back to his office. Even now, crawling through a potentially hostile star system, there was no shortage of work to do.
And besides, it distracted him from his growing concerns.
Chapter Seventeen
Kurt felt oddly numb over the days following their joint confession. On one hand, his duties to the starfighter pilots under his command were blurred with reporting to the Marines and going through every last detail of their affair; on the other hand, he kept expecting the blackmailers to make contact and nothing happened. He programmed his terminal to alert him the moment any message arrived, then did his best to put it out of his mind. It didn’t work.
He missed Rose, more than he cared to admit. It wasn’t just the sex; it was being with her, sharing ideas for how best to deploy their starfighters in combat. But they’d been banned from being together alone and it was hard to get someone else to supervise them. All they could do was keep busy, keep the new trainees working hard to build up their skills and try not to think about the future. Whatever happened, Kurt knew, his career was definitely at an end.
“All clear,” the XO said, once Ark Royal passed through yet another tramline. “Starfighter pilots may return to their quarters.”
Kurt nodded and climbed out of his starfighter. One squadron would remain on Quick Reaction Alert at all times, just in case they encountered the aliens, but the remaining pilots would either go to the simulators or their bunks. Most of the trainees were looking tired and worn these days; if it had been possible, Kurt would have forced them all to take a week’s rest. But he knew that it wouldn’t be possible until the end of the mission.
He sighed as he looked at the young men and women. Most of them were definitely going to wind up dead.
“Concentrate on your attack formations,” he ordered, addressing one group. They’d be going straight to the simulators. “You’re not random enough. The aliens will rip you to shreds when you enter attack range.”
“I’ll put them through the wringer,” Wing Commander Falcone assured him. He looked ridiculously young for his rank, but at least he had experience. He’d been nothing more than a newly-trained pilot during Operation Nelson. “And then make sure they get some damn sleep.”
“Proper sleep,” Kurt ordered. “Sleep machines tend to catch up with you, sooner or later.”
He watched them go, then turned and hurried back to his office. The Marines would probably want to talk to him again soon enough and he wanted a nap before they arrived, if only to prevent himself from falling asleep in the middle of the interrogation. They just went over the same questions again and again. Kurt suspected they were trying to catch him in a lie, something that infuriated him more than he cared to say. But he knew they had no reason to trust him. They knew how badly he’d compromised himself.
His office was monitored now, of course. Kurt wasn’t sure if it was to make sure he wasn’t making love to Rose or to catch anyone trying to leave messages for him, but it was something else he hated, no matter how much he understood. He stepped through the hatch and half-stumbled towards the desk, fighting down the yawn that threatened to burst from his mouth. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him.
And a new message was blinking on his terminal.
He stared, suddenly shocked into action. It was from the address he’d been given… and he should have been alerted. When he looked down at the terminal on his belt, he saw nothing… but they’d been on tactical alert. Nothing short of a Priority One message would have been forwarded to him. He cursed violently, then opened the message. It was nothing more than a handful of sentences strung together, seemingly at random. But he knew it was the message’s arrival that was the true notification.
Bracing himself, he stood and strode through the hatch, heading up towards the observation blister. It was late at night, by shipboard time, which probably meant it would be in use by a pair of legitimate lovers. The hidden sign indicating occupancy was there, warning him not to enter the compartment. But he had a feeling it was actually there to keep people out until he’d picked up his orders. Cursing again, he walked through the hatch and into the observation blister. It was empty.
Puzzled, he looked around. There was a datachip lying on one of the benches, under the stars. He picked it up and examined it, but saw nothing that separated it from the hundreds of thousands of datachips used throughout the ship. It looked to be a design used by both civilian and military personnel. No one would think twice if they saw it, he realised, silently saluting the blackmailers. And, without the correct access codes, they wouldn’t be able to use it.
He popped the chip into his terminal. There was a brief moment of nothing, then the terminal demanded a biometric scan. Kurt swore under his breath, then pressed his fingertip against the reader, wondering just where the blackmailers had obtained his biometric details. They were kept under tight security at Nelson Base, as far as he knew. Fingerprints were one thing, but access to a person’s genetic code — which would be possible, if they’d accessed his fingerprint records — was potentially disastrous. Someone could force-grow a clone of someone important and use the clone’s DNA to access classified data.