He sighed as he took a towel and scrubbed himself dry, then walked out into the main room, where Janelle was buttoning up her uniform. She looked remarkably presentable, he decided, although the grin on her face was quite alarming. Henry hesitated, then told her to concentrate on appearing normal. Everyone would know what had happened if she walked out of his cabin with that grin.
“Bastard,” Janelle said, without heat. She made a show of eying his face. “And what about your grin? You’re smirking like a cat in heat.”
“I have to clear away the mess,” Henry said. He looked down at the remains of the hamper. They hadn’t even managed to get to the chocolate cheesecake… he shrugged, then transferred it to the fridge. It could be devoured later. He had a sudden vision of licking it off her breasts and had to fight to keep calm. “And then review more and more boring diplomatic stuff.”
Janelle smiled. “Have you thought about requesting assignment to the embassy, once one is set up on the alien homeworld?”
“The government wouldn’t let me, I suspect,” Henry admitted. The thought was tempting, but there were too many objections. He’d have to remain Prince Henry, for a start. “They’re very keen to keep the Royal Family away from power. Too many people remember King Charles I.”
“He was centuries ago,” Janelle protested. “I thought most people remembered Charles III.”
Henry shrugged. Charles III had been unlucky enough to be monarch during the Troubles. He hadn’t been malicious, but there had been too many politicians eager to divert blame onto the monarch’s shoulders. Charles’s reputation had never really recovered. His namesake, however, had plotted to destroy Parliament and wage war on his own people. Henry would have liked him more if he’d slaughtered reporters by the bucket load. Instead, he’d started a civil war and then lost, losing his head in the process.
“Aristocrats have long memories,” he said, instead. “They need to think long-term if they have any hope of surviving at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I think we definitely have company,” Farley said. “But she’s being very careful to stay out of sensor range.”
James cursed. The alien contact had appeared shortly after they’d crossed the tramline into the second-to-last system and maintained its position since then. There was no way to tell if it was a carrier or something smaller — although he suspected it was no bigger than a frigate — but it was keeping a solid lock on the flotilla’s position. They couldn’t run and they couldn’t hide.
“Keep an eye on it,” he ordered. He briefly considered several tactics for forcing the enemy starship to fall back or engage his forces, but nothing would work unless the aliens chose to cooperate. “And keep running through the drones.”
“Aye, Captain,” Farley said. “Local space appears clear.”
James nodded, impatiently. The system was barren, with nothing more interesting than a handful of comets and a tiny asteroid field. He’d wondered, privately, if the aliens had blown up a dwarf planet to make it easier to mine, but the concept seemed somewhat inefficient. There was no shortage of resources for the aliens to use in nearby systems. Instead, it looked as though the aliens used the system as a transfer point and nothing else.
He settled back in his command chair, watching the ship’s status display. The course they were taking towards the other tramline was a least-time course, set by their alien companion, something that bothered him more than he cared to admit. It would be easy for the aliens to set up an ambush. Hell, the tanker-supported attack on the flotilla could have been intended to distract them long enough for the aliens to put their fleet together. They couldn’t have expected a handful of fighters to do more than scratch the Old Lady’s paint.
But they did kill Bolton, he thought. The escort carrier was a very minor ship, compared to the giant fleet carriers, but losing her launching platform would hurt. They could have rotated their starfighters through her recycling system if necessary. It wasn’t a total loss.
The hours ticked by slowly, with no sign of anything from the shadowing alien craft. It was odd, but in a way James was almost pleased to see it. If the War Faction felt the urge to keep a sharp eye on the flotilla, he told himself, it suggested the Peace Faction wasn’t planning an elaborate double-cross. He was still mulling over the different possibilities — and the reports from the diplomats — as Ark Royal approached the second tramline.
He keyed his console. “Admiral,” he said, “I’d like to alter course.”
It might be worthless, he knew. The aliens had a tactical speed advantage — and they might well have a stealthed ship monitoring the tramline in position to jump through and arrange for any waiting ambushers to change position. But it had to be done. If the aliens were friendly, they’d understand. And if they weren’t, it would give the Old Lady her best chance of punching her way through the ambush or escaping back into the barren system.
“See to it,” the Admiral ordered. He looked well-rested, for once. “But don’t go too far from our current course.”
James nodded and issued orders. Ark Royal altered course slightly, angling towards the tramline at an angle that would change their exit coordinate significantly. Moments later, War Hog moved ahead of the flotilla, intent on jumping through the tramline first. If she didn’t return… James cursed under his breath. It had all been simpler when they’d thought there was one alien faction and all aliens were hostile. Now…
“War Hog has jumped, sir,” Farley reported.
“Good,” James said, silently counting down the seconds. If the frigate had run into a hot reception, he knew, she might have been blown apart before she could jump out again. This time, an ambush would have been all too easy. “And our friend?”
“Holding position, as always,” Farley said. “I don’t think they did more than match our course and speed.”
James sighed. The alien diplomats seemed to have much less freedom than their human counterparts. Every hour, they sent back countless terabytes of data to their starship, detailing the talks with the humans and requesting instructions. The researchers had sworn the aliens probably never did anything individually, but their discussions seemed more than a little excessive. But then, if the aliens on the ship represented several different factions, it was quite likely the diplomats themselves couldn’t form a consensus. They needed to talk to their faction-mates.
We need to work out some proper terminology for this, James thought, ruefully. The diplomats had urged the researchers not to place any simple words on the alien concepts, pointing out that the words could lead to misunderstandings. But humanity wasn’t entirely used to a concept of nationhood where nationality could be switched at the drop of a hat. And then see if we can emulate anything of theirs that’s worth copying.
An icon flashed back into life on the display. “Captain, War Hog has returned,” Farley reported. “She’s transmitting now.”
James switched his attention to the secondary display as it started to fill with data. Local space was seemingly clear, but the system itself was clearly heavily industrialised. The frigate’s passive sensors had detected energy signatures all over the system, suggesting an industrial base on the same level as Target One — or Earth. Hundreds of spacecraft made their way through the system, thousands of settlements could been seen in the asteroids and planetary orbits. It was a staggering display of alien industrial might.