Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16) Read online

  The virus managed to get a foothold in the city, he thought, numbly. A pair of helicopters flew overhead, spotlights stabbing down at the ground. What else has it done?

  The lorry lurched into life. Tobias gritted his teeth as the vehicle rumbled down the eerie street. The sky was still dark, but the spotlights lit up the community with a blinding light that cast out the shadows. There were hundreds - perhaps thousands - of troops on the streets, all wearing masks if they weren’t wearing HAZMAT gear. A row of AFVs sat beside a barricade, one clearly thrown up in a hurry. Tobias shivered. He’d walked past the barricade only a few short hours ago, back when the world had made sense. The barricade hadn’t even been there. London had shifted from an old city, repaired and rebuilt after the Troubles and the Bombardment, into a Lovecraftian nightmare, a horror from the days biological weapons had been deployed by terrorists and rogue states alike. He’d heard the stories - he’d studied the official version in history class and the unofficial version on the dark web - but he’d never really understood the reality. It had been nothing more than history to him, until now. He shuddered, again and again, as they drove past more troops. They looked ready for anything. Tobias devoutly hoped that was true.

  “STAY IN YOUR HOMES.” A police car drove past, blue lights flashing as the message was repeated time and time again. The racket was so loud Tobias was morbidly certain no one, absolutely no one, was still asleep. They’d be having nightmares long after the night was over. “STAY IN YOUR HOMES. STAY OFF THE STREETS. IF YOU FEEL UNWELL, CALL US IMMEDIATELY ...”

  “No one will listen,” an older man predicted. He looked to be the sort of person Tobias had disliked once upon a time, a schoolyard bully grown up into a manager bully. His walrus moustache wriggled as he spoke. “They’ll all be trying to get out before the infection gets them.”

  Tobias said nothing, but he feared the older man was right. The infection had clearly gotten its hooks into the district. He’d heard rumours about emergency plans, from the careful evacuation and sterilization of the infected area to its complete destruction by nuclear weapons. Tobias doubted that any British Government would authorise the use of nuclear weapons on British cities, but the government might be desperate. The Prime Minister was in a precarious position. Tobias didn’t follow politics and even he knew that. Decisive action against the virus, at the cost of hundreds of innocent lives, would either boost the man’s career into the stratosphere or utterly destroy it. In this day and age, it was hard to tell which.

  The vehicle rattled to a halt. Tobias watched, grimly, as the soldiers unhooked the rear of the lorry and started dragging the prisoners out. He’d been through mil-grade decontamination procedures before, when there hadn’t been any real threat. The process had been strict, but not that strict. This time, they could take nothing for granted. Tobias doubted they’d see their clothes again, after they went through decontamination. It was rather more likely that everything they wore - and carried - would be incinerated. The military wouldn’t take chances, not now.

  “I’m not infected,” the older man protested, as he was half-carried out of the lorry. “I’m not infected!”

  “Be quiet,” a soldier growled.

  “Do you know who I am?” The older man glared at the soldier, trying to stand upright in shackles. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been so serious. “I’m the managing director of Drills Incorporated and ...”

  “I said, be quiet,” the soldier repeated. He hefted his shockrod menacingly. “You’ll be checked as quickly as possible and released as soon as we’re sure you’re uninfected.”

  Tobias kept his thoughts to himself as the older man quietened. He wanted to protest, but he understood. The soldiers really couldn’t take anything for granted. For all they knew, the entire lorry-load of prisoners was infected. They had to be careful, very careful. And if that meant treating civilians - as well as Tobias and Marigold - like dangerous terrorists ...

  They don’t have a choice, Tobias thought, glumly. They don’t have any way to be sure we’re not infected. Nor do we.

  Chapter Two

  “They’re saying it’s the end of days.”

  Admiral Lady Susan Onarina kept her face expressionless as the official car made its way through a military checkpoint before turning onto Whitehall and heading towards Number Ten Downing Street. The driver, who’d been a cabbie before being recalled to the colours in the wake of the latest string of disasters, had kept up a cheerfully irrelevant conversation that - under other circumstances - would have charmed her. Some of her relatives were cabbies, men and women who specialised in putting their passengers at ease as they drove through the winding streets of the capital city. But now, with a viral infection blighting London itself, she found it hard to listen. The world had just shifted on its axis. Again. As a younger officer, she’d wondered why her superiors had been slow to adapt to a whole new world; now, older and wiser, she thought she understood. Everything she’d known before the war had begun was now obsolete.

  The car passed through the gates and came to a halt in front of Ten Downing Street. A uniformed policeman hurried to open the door for her, allowing Susan to bid the cabbie goodbye and clamber onto the street. Her skin prickled, a grim reminder that she was under close observation. She might be a Peer of the Realm, and a Lady of the Garter, but she couldn’t be trusted completely. No one could, not when the virus could turn a loyal officer into an unwitting traitor overnight. It rankled, even though she understood. She’d worked long and hard to overcome the stigma of her birth, skin colour and everything else that had threatened to bar her from command rank. To be distrusted so openly ...

  It happens to everyone, she thought, as the doorman welcomed her into the building. A pair of guards, just inside the entrance, pressed a sampler against her neck to check her blood. It hurt, more than she’d expected. They’d improved upon the design. She made a face as she passed through a set of sealed doors, into the next chamber. They’ve been tightening the defences ever since they discovered the virus could infect the brain - and the brain alone.

  “Admiral,” Simon Portage said. The PM’s aide nodded politely. “He’s waiting for you.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said. She knew she was running late, although the PM was unlikely to make something of it. She’d half-expected the meeting to be cancelled. The PM had ordered COBRA convened, according to the BBC; he’d be expected to chair the meeting personally, even though there was little he could do. He’d given the right orders and all he could reasonably do now was wait. “Just take me straight through.”

  She glanced at her reflection in the mirror as they climbed up the stairs and walked through two more checkpoints. Her skin was as dark as ever, her hair threatening to turn grey under the weight of the world. She wasn’t the young woman she’d been, back when the hardest task she’d faced had been to break into a world dominated by the Old Boys Network and riven with suspicion and fear of anyone who couldn’t trace their bloodline back to the Norman Conquest. One didn’t have to be aristocratic, perish the thought, but one had to be British. The hypocrisy had irked her, once upon a time. The Royal Family was German in origin, something that had been more than a little embarrassing during the world wars. Now, she would have sold her soul to go back to those days. The entire world wasn’t at risk of a fate worse than death.

  The PM’s office had always struck her as surprisingly small, for all its importance. It was decorated in a style that had been gone out of fashion long before the Troubles, although the original owners would have been alternatively baffled and horrified by the terminal resting on the heavy wooden desk and the security screens worked into the walls and windows. There was something unassuming about the entire building - it was hard, sometimes, to believe that it was the heart of a Great Power - but she had to admit it appealed to her. It kept its occupants humble.

  Prime Minister Arthur Harrison rose to greet her. He was a middle-aged man, going prematurely grey under the stresses of his offi
ce. Susan disliked politics, but - in her post - she had no choice but to follow them. She knew Harrison’s position was weaker than it seemed, despite the War Cabinet and the Government of National Unity. The viral outbreak in London had made the government look like fools, even though it had been swiftly contained. If matters didn’t get any better, it was quite possible the government would fracture as the opposition parties struggled to avoid a share of the blame. Susan understood the system - she appreciated that it worked better than some foreign systems - but she wasn’t blind to its weaknesses. No one really wanted to take collective responsibility - otherwise known as sharing the blame - for anything.

  “Susan,” Harrison said. He shook her hand, firmly. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Susan replied. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.”

  The PM grimaced. “Please, take a seat,” he said, indicating the armchairs in the corner. “We have much to discuss.”

  Susan sat and composed herself as Harrison ordered tea. His accent was so strongly aristocratic that, once upon a time, it would have made her clench her teeth. Even now, it grated. She knew from experience that not all aristocrats were worthless pimples on the body politic - technically, she was an aristocrat herself - but it was hard to shake the old prejudices. No doubt they felt the same way about her. She told herself, firmly, that it was unfair to blame them for their ancestors. She’d been judged by hers often enough to know how profoundly unfair it was.

  A maid appeared with a tea tray, which she placed on a small table next to the armchairs and withdrew as silently as she’d come. Harrison sat, his fingers lingering on the teapot as he counted the seconds. Susan watched, feeling torn between amusement and grim understanding. She’d grown up in a world of instant tea and coffee, but ... she had to admit there was something about the ritual that was almost soothing. The PM was using the pause to gather his thoughts, without seeming rude. She smiled inwardly and waited as he poured the tea, then held out the biscuit tray. He needed the pause. If she was any judge, the entire world was demanding answers. And there were none to be had.

  Not yet, she told herself. The viral package had spread quickly, too quickly. That bothered her. The virus presumably understood its cellular structure a great deal better than the human xenospecialists. If it had found a way to survive England’s weather, and spread right across the globe, the war was within shouting distance of being lost. If Lightning Strike fails, we may have to start preparing for a full-scale evacuation of Earth.

  She glanced at her teacup. It wasn’t going to happen. There was no way they could evacuate an entire planet. The combined carrying capacity of every starship in human service wouldn’t even scratch the surface. Susan had seen some of the emergency plans, the ones drawn up to meet a threat no one had ever really believed existed. Their most optimistic estimates suggested that only a small percentage of the planet’s population could be saved.

  The PM took a sip of his tea, then cleared his throat. “We don’t have much time, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he said. “Can we move to the point?”

  Susan nodded, concealing her relief. She was well aware of the urgency, but she was also aware that most politicians preferred not to come straight to the point. There were political implications to everything, even something as simple as ordering dinner. The pettiness of the political mind, particularly a mind belonging to someone who would never be offered a seat on the cabinet or party leadership committee, could never be overstated. And this was something with real political implications. If the PM made the wrong call, or even the right call if things went wrong, it would blow up in his face and destroy his career.

  If there’s anyone left to land the fatal blow, Susan mused. British political history was full of elder statesmen who’d told serving prime ministers that it was time for them to go - sometimes overtly, sometimes not - but that rather depended on parliament surviving long enough to do it. We could lose the war overnight if the operation goes badly wrong.

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” she said. She straightened, putting her cup to one side so she could rest her hands in her lap. “Operation Thunder Child was a moderate success. The biobombs were effective, although not as effective as we had hoped. Given the nature of the viral command and control system, the virus would be faced with a serious problem if the counter-virus got a solid foothold. It would either have to shatter the command network itself, thus weakening its ability to coordinate operations, or risk losing everything to the counter-virus.”

  “It would have to cut off its nose to spite its face,” the PM said, quietly.

  “More like cut off its own arm to keep the infection from spreading,” Susan said. She’d read the reports from the bioweapon research labs. A handful of researchers had faced the blunt choice between mutilating themselves or being infected and sentenced to almost certain death. The thought was enough to make her shudder. The idea of cutting off her own arm ... she knew she was no coward, but she honestly wasn’t sure she could do it. She wouldn’t know until it was too late. “The virus doesn’t think the way we do, Prime Minister, but we find it hard to believe that mutilating itself wouldn’t cause some qualms.”

  The Prime Minister nodded, slowly. “Is it even intelligent, as we understand the term?”

  “We don’t know,” Susan said. “It’s certainly capable of reading memories from infected hosts and using them against us. That suggests a certain intelligence, but it hasn’t made any move to open communications or even demand a surrender. Opinion is divided on why it hasn’t tried to come to terms with us. One group thinks the virus knows we wouldn’t surrender, another thinks we just haven’t hurt it badly enough to force it to come to the negotiations table.”

  She grimaced. She’d played plenty of computer games, as a schoolgirl, where the player just couldn’t win until she’d hunted down and destroyed the last of the AI-controlled units. The battle had been fought and won, but the AI had refused to admit defeat. It hadn’t had a hope of winning and yet it had prolonged the battle for hours, forcing her to search the entire level for the last remaining enemy unit. Human opponents were far easier to defeat. They tended to accept that a battle had been lost and surrender, then insist on restarting the game. The virus didn’t seem to be capable of admitting defeat either. It had certainly never made any attempt to surrender.

  “It isn’t as if it could offer reasonable terms,” the PM said. He sipped his tea, thoughtfully. “I assume you want to proceed with Lightning Strike.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” Susan said. “When the operation was first discussed, it was one of a multitude of options for later consideration. There was no sense that it was any more urgent than any of the other possible operations. Now, however, things have changed. Long-range survey missions have revealed that the virus ...”

  “I’ve been briefed,” the PM said, curtly. “The Admiralty was divided on the merits of the operation.”

  “It was a risky concept, when it was first discussed,” Susan said. “Now, it may be our only hope.”

  The Prime Minister said nothing for a long moment. Susan understood. The buck stopped with him, him and the war cabinet and GATO. The Global Alliance Treaty Organisation would have the final call, on paper, but everyone knew that the PM could have said no - and refused to allow British forces to take part - if he’d wished. There would be enough blame to go around, Susan reflected, if there was anyone left to point the finger. Operation Lightning Strike promised either total victory… or defeat. There was no middle ground.

  “You are sure about the survey reports?” The PM sounded quietly desperate. “And about the need for such an immense commitment?”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” Susan said. “In theory, we could carry out phase one with only a squadron of warships. We could handle it ourselves. In practice, we’d need a major deployment if we wanted to move straight to phase two. The window of opportunity will not remain open for long.”

  “If you manage t
o open it at all,” the PM pointed out. “The virus must be aware of the dangers.”

  Susan felt a hot flash of irritation, which she hastily suppressed. The red teams at the Admiralty had been working overtime, trying to list all the ways Lightning Strike I and II could go horrifically wrong. It was their job, and she didn’t fault them for drawing up contingency plans, but ... she resisted the urge to shake her head. In her experience, there was a difference between considering the worst that could happen and allowing oneself to be hypnotised by it. There were always risks to everything, including doing nothing. The virus wasn’t a normal opponent. There was no hope of peace.

  And if only one of us can survive, she thought sourly, I will do everything in my power to ensure it’s us.