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

  “We don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “Prime Minister, carrying out phase one will win us some time, even if we cannot move directly to phase two. And we are desperately short of time.”

  The PM nodded, curtly. He’d have to make the calls himself. There were some things that simply couldn’t be left to the Foreign Office mandarins. They had their uses, but they also had a tendency to soften diplomatic messages until they no longer carried their original urgency. Susan had studied history. A great many problems might have been avoided if ultimatums hadn’t been watered down by the diplomats. She smiled at the thought. It was equally possible the problems might have been made a great deal worse. Very few governments could afford to back down at gunpoint, for fear it would give their opponents ideas.

  They should understand what’s at stake, she thought. The Great Powers often disliked each other, but they’d learnt the hard way that they had to work together. Humanity was surrounded by alien races, some of them extremely hostile. The Great Powers had to hang together or hang separately. There was no choice. London wasn’t the only city that suffered a biological attack.

  “If the GATO powers agree to back the plan, I’m sure the war cabinet will also agree,” the Prime Minister said. “However, it may take some time to organise the deployment.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” Susan said. “Time is not on our side. If the virus manages to deploy its forces before we mount the operation, we’ll be staring down the barrel of a gun.”

  “I know,” the Prime Minister said. “But if the operation fails, or if it even works a little too well, we’ll be cut off from our ships. And that would be disastrous, too.”

  Susan nodded. “We have contingency plans, but something must be left to chance.”

  “And no warship can do very wrong that fires on the enemy,” the Prime Minister misquoted, dryly. He’d have studied Nelson in school, just like Susan herself. The post-Troubles government had no time for suggestions that Nelson, a great naval hero, had been a cad, a bounder, an adulterer and father of an illegitimate child. “I dislike relying on luck. It has a habit of being unreliable.”

  He put his cup on the tray, signalling the interview was over. “I’ll speak to the world leaders,” he said. “For now, you are authorised to begin planning for the deployment on the assumption they’ll agree. If they don’t ... you can proceed with phase one.”

  “There’d be no way we can move to phase two,” Susan warned. “Not alone. Not unless we commit the entire navy to the mission.”

  “Which isn’t going to happen,” the PM said. “There’s no way we could authorise such a deployment.”

  “No, Prime Minister,” Susan agreed. “However, without phase two ...”

  The PM stood. “I understand the risks,” he said, as Susan stood too. “I’ll do everything in my power to convince the rest of the world to join us. If not ... we can at least win some time.”

  “But not enough,” Susan said. “It won’t take the virus long to rebuild.”

  “It really is terrifyingly efficient,” the PM said. “If only we had such budgets ...”

  Susan nodded as the PM’s aide materialised at her shoulder, ready to show her out. The virus had no need, as far as anyone could tell, to provide even a basic standard of living to its hosts. It didn’t even seem to care about them. Rotting bodies didn’t matter, once the virus had built its control structures within the walking corpses. And that meant it could devote everything to making war. Susan shuddered as she was escorted back to her car. The virus didn’t need a bigger industrial base than the human race. It just had to commit it all to war production.

  She took a breath as she stepped into the warm summer air. The air stank faintly of disinfectant, a grim reminder that London had been scarred by the virus. And that nowhere was truly safe ...

  The driver had been right, she decided as she climbed into the car. It was the end of days.

  Chapter Three

  “They’re saying that all of London is gone,” some dimwit said. “And that it’s just a matter of time before the virus gets here.”

  Captain the Honourable Lord Thomas Hammond gritted his teeth, trying to remember the dimwit’s name. The man was a few years older than him, just old enough to ensure Thomas hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing him at school or university, but still ... if he’d been invited to the party, Thomas should know him. Or maybe not. It had been Lady Charlotte Hammond, Thomas’s wife, who’d put the entire party together on short notice. She’d done everything, from hiring the servants to dispatching invitations to everyone who was anyone in the aristocracy. Thomas was sure she’d even sent invitations to aristocrats who physically couldn’t attend. They might have a good excuse - military service was practically compulsory, for aristocrats and commoners alike - but Thomas was damn sure they’d remember not being invited. It was the kind of social faux pas that could be relied upon to spark an entire string of demented feuds.

  It was a great deal simpler when we settled such matters with swords, he thought. The idea of cutting the dimwit’s head off was growing more and more attractive by the second. It probably helped cut down on insults and suchlike, too.

  He scowled, inwardly, as the man went on and on, talking endlessly about a subject he knew nothing about. The dimwit didn’t know the slightest thing about the virus, let alone how it spread. The party itself would have been cancelled at short notice, if the virus had blanketed the entire country. Thomas - and everyone else - would have been infected. The virus didn’t care for parties or anything, really, beyond spreading as far as it could. It certainly wouldn’t bother to uphold the society Thomas had sworn to defend.

  “The government should be telling us more,” the dimwit continued. “We run the country.”

  Thomas sighed, inwardly. He had to admit the lack of information was troubling - the BBC’s broadcasts had been long on exhortations to remain calm and short on actual data - but he was all too aware that unfriendly ears might be listening. No one was entirely sure of just how much the virus understood, when it intercepted human transmissions, but there was no point in taking chances. Better to assume that everything broadcast in the clear was intercepted and relayed to the alien homeworld than wind up being surprised by the virus knowing something it shouldn’t.

  Not that there was much more on the military channels, he mused. He’d tried to access the military datanet as soon as he’d heard the news, and he’d checked back throughout the day, but his clearance wasn’t high enough to get more than the very basics. Army personnel had been recalled to their garrisons, naval personnel were expected to sit on their arses and do nothing. That doesn’t bode well for the future.

  He allowed his eyes to wander over the crowd as the dimwit wittered on and on. His lips thinned in disapproval as he spotted a handful of army officers, all of whom should be elsewhere. They were probably useless beancounters, rather than officers who led men into battle, but still ... a good organiser would probably be very helpful in London. Beyond them, there was the usual mixture of older women, debs and a smattering of young men intent on courting the girls. There were fewer of them than Thomas had expected. The war had taken many young men from their homes and thrown them into the storm ...

  A middle-aged woman caught his eye. Thomas turned from the dimwit and marched towards her. Charlotte would make him pay for that later, he was sure, but he found it hard to care. A few more moments of listening to the babble would have him contemplating homicide ... or, perhaps, retreating to his rooms far too early in the evening. Charlotte wouldn’t be happy about that either. Leaving the party wasn’t a harmless little prank like spiking the drinks. It would be a sign he simply didn’t care about the guests.

  And I don’t, Thomas thought, crossly. He had no objection to the real work that came with his title, what little he had to do personally. Charlotte ran the estate while he was on active duty and did it very well. The parties, on the other hand, were just boring. Thomas would almost sooner have been a
midshipman again. At least he’d done something useful with his time. Does anything that happens at this party truly matter?

  “My Lord,” Lady Bracknell said. She had a large handbag under one arm, something that had always amused Thomas more than he could say. “I trust you’re having a pleasant evening?”

  “It has its moments,” Thomas said. He spotted a waitress carrying a tray of drinks across the room and sighed, inwardly. Getting thoroughly drunk would make the evening go quicker, but there would be hell to pay afterwards. “And yourself?”

  “I must say you always put on the best parties,” Lady Bracknell said. “My husband was quite impressed.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Thomas lied. He was fairly sure she was lying, too. Lord Bracknell lived for hunting and nothing else, as far as he could tell. He wouldn’t enjoy the party any more than Thomas did. “And how is your son coping with his new career?”

  “He says his captain is a very understanding man,” Lady Bracknell said. “He’s already made First Middy.”

  “Impressive,” Thomas said. Lady Bracknell’s son wasn’t that senior, was he? It was unlikely he had enough time in grade to outrank the rest of the middies. A toadying captain, promoting a well-connected young man above the rest? Or was he doing Lady Bracknell’s son a disservice? It was hard to believe, sometimes, that his own little girls were adults in their own right. Part of him would always think of them as children. “I’m sure that speaks well of him.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Lady Bracknell said. She put a hand on his arm, steering him into a corner. “I wanted to discuss a possible match between my son and your daughter.”

  Thomas called on all his years of naval service to keep his face carefully blank. “I think that’s something best discussed with my daughter in person,” he said. Charlotte would have mentioned it, wouldn’t she, if someone had been sniffing around for a marriage alliance. He’d known it was coming, but it was still a shock. “And perhaps in a more private time.”

  “He’s due to get a week’s leave, next month,” Lady Bracknell said. “He could meet your daughter ...”

  Thomas had to smile. “Which daughter?”

  “It does not matter to us,” Lady Bracknell said. Thomas couldn’t tell if she remembered either of his daughters or not. “We’re interested in a marriage alliance.”

  “I shall discuss it with my wife and daughters,” Thomas said, stiffly. “Have you discussed it with your son?”

  Lady Bracknell looked blank. Thomas sighed inwardly, feeling a stab of sympathy for the young man. It had been a long time since he’d met the brat, long enough to recall him as a teenager rather than a grown adult. He made a mental note to discuss the matter with his daughters first, before his wife got wind of the affair. Their match had worked out well, he supposed, but they’d been lucky. He cared for her. He wasn’t sure, at times, if he loved her. But then, marriages amongst the aristocracy weren’t meant to be about love.

  She probably hasn’t even told him about her plans, he thought. She’s deciding his future for him, leaving him in the dark as long as possible.

  “We’ll discuss the matter later,” he said, hoping she’d drop it and knowing she wouldn’t. Not yet, perhaps not ever. Elizabeth and Lucille were heirs to one of the largest fortunes in England. Elizabeth would inherit the estate itself - that was entailed, ensuring it couldn’t be broken into smaller chunks - but Lucille would hardly be destitute. “And then we’ll be in touch.”

  His stomach churned as Lady Bracknell strode away, every inch the matriarch. Thomas wondered, idly, if she’d discussed the matter with her husband, let alone her son. It was very typical for social matrons to march ahead, daring anyone to be so unbearably rude as to say no. Thomas had no patience for them and yet ... he would have to ensure his girls married well. His lips quirked. If he recommended a young man to his daughters, either of his daughters, it would probably prejudice them against him. He made a mental note to check the young man’s record. His captain might not write down anything too dreadful - Lady Bracknell and her clan had a long reach - but Thomas was quite experienced at reading between the lines. If nothing else, he could take the man out for a drink and ask him questions completely off the record. He might get some honest answers if the captain thought he could speak freely.

  The dreadful evening wore on. Thomas forced himself to be polite to a couple of retired admirals, both of whom had served their time during the First Interstellar War and refused to believe that naval combat had moved on. One of them was smart enough to accept that Thomas knew what he was doing, if only because he’d returned alive; the other seemed to think Thomas had escaped certain death by sheer damned luck. Thomas bit his lip to keep from telling them precisely what he thought of their feelings, all too aware his wife was watching him. She’d put a lot of effort into the evening.

  Damn it, Thomas thought. He glanced at his wristcom, wishing the Admiralty would recall him. Or something. He’d been told he had to report back to Nelson Base in two days, but ... he would almost have welcomed an alien attack. Not, he supposed, that he would have been able to get back to his ship. There simply wouldn’t be time. Commander Donker, his XO, would have to take command. We wouldn’t even have time to call off the party.

  He forced himself to keep moving. A pair of young debs wittered to him about nothing in particular, suggesting they’d gone to a finishing school that specialised in turning a young lady’s head into mush. Thomas wasn’t sure if they were hitting on him or just trying to make pointless conversation. There was no sign of a chaperone. The dresses they wore, all too revealing, suggested they’d come alone. An older man babbled endlessly about the horses, while drinking glass after glass of expensive wine. Thomas tried to hide his disgust. The intelligent aristocrats, the ones with working brains, were serving their country. The ones who couldn’t count past ten without taking off their socks - and thought that taking down their pants, instead, was the height of humour - were infesting his estate. He wanted them all gone.

  Charlotte joined him as the butler called the crowd in for dinner. Thomas glanced at her, wondering - again - why she cared. She’d gone to some trouble to dress up, donning a long pink outfit that gave the impression of being translucent without revealing anything and tying up her hair into buns that made her look mature and yet strikingly young. He supposed it meant something to her, but what? It wasn’t as if she was a prisoner on the estate. She ran the place. She could take a trip to London any time she liked ...

  “You’re seated next to Lord Aleman,” Charlotte said, pitching her voice so low Thomas could barely hear her over the babble. “Try and keep him onside.”

  Thomas sighed. Lord Aleman wasn’t as bad as the dimwit - he was currently flirting with one of the debs, who looked as if she wanted to gut him with her bare hands - but he wasn’t Thomas’s idea of a good dinner companion. He caught sight of Captain Campbell, looking completely out of place, and winced inwardly. The lucky bastard didn’t have to worry about maintaining an estate. Or pretending to like someone he wanted to strangle.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “Lord Aleman has the Prime Minister’s ear,” Charlotte added. “We don’t want him saying the wrong things, do we?”

  “No,” Thomas said. “I suppose we don’t.”

  ***

  If the general public knew about this, Captain Mitch Campbell thought sourly, they’d drag the entire aristocracy to the guillotines and behead them.

  He tried to keep his face under tight control as he took his seat - at the lower table, naturally - and looked around the giant hall. There was so much wealth and power concentrated in a single room that it was a marvel it didn’t go supercritical and explode, or that he hadn’t been unceremoniously ejected for being a very blatant commoner. His dress uniform itched like mad - whoever had designed the outfit had been a sadist - and he had every right to wear it, but the mere act of wearing an untailored uniform was clear proof he wasn’t rich enough to afford a
private tailor. The debs - young women entering their seasons, now they were old enough to marry - might be willing to flirt with him in private, but not in public. And hardly anyone else was interested in him at all.

  Mitch felt his heart sink still further as the servants brought dinner into the hall and started to serve the first course. There was so much food ... a commoner family on rations wouldn’t get anything like as much. It had been a long time since anyone had actually starved in Britain - ration bars were free, on the grounds no one would actually pay for them - but they tasted of cardboard, when they tasted of anything at all. He tried not to show his envy as he saw the roast haunches of meat, shining platters of vegetables and giant tureens of gravy. He hadn’t eaten so well since ... since ever. The bright young things all around him had no idea how lucky they were. London was infected, under quarantine, and the lords and masters of the universe didn’t give a damn.

  He gritted his teeth as he saw Captain Hammond, chatting happily with an older man in a fancy suit. Captain Hammond wasn’t a bad officer, but he was conservative to a fault. Mitch was sure they could have done more damage to the enemy, if they’d continued the fight. But Hammond had wanted to quit while they were ahead ... Mitch snorted in disgust. He should never have accepted the invitation. He wasn’t even sure why it had been made. God knew Captain Hammond was probably sick of him, too.