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

  Tobias nodded and followed her to the taxi. The driver looked relieved to see them. Tobias wasn’t too surprised. There were too many soldiers on the streets for anyone to have any doubts about the potential danger. Soldiers in public view had been common, since the Troubles and the Bombardment, but ... he shook his head. Anyone could be a zombie, these days. Anyone could turn into a lethal enemy ...

  The taxi hummed into life and drove away from the medical complex. Tobias hadn’t been to London very often, and he hadn’t spent much time in the city, but even he could tell the capital was oddly subdued. The streets were largely empty, save for soldiers, policemen and a handful of civilians. The latter wore masks, some of which looked as if they’d come straight out of the Second World War. Tobias wasn’t too impressed. A man might rely on a mask to save his life, but a zombie could also use one to hide his true nature. He’d heard rumours that police checkpoints were making people lift their masks, as well as submit to blood screenings. It would certainly make a great deal of sense.

  He shivered as a pair of helicopters clattered through the air. Police or military? It didn’t really matter. London had been a no-fly zone for everyone else for decades, ever since the Troubles. The PDCs on the far side of the city had authorisation to shoot down aircraft that ventured into the secure airspace, perhaps without warning. Tobias tried not to think about the shuttle that would be taking them back to the ship, passing too close to the PDC for comfort. He understood the logic - a zombie would have no qualms about crashing an airliner into the city - but it still chilled him to the bone. They might wind up doing more damage to themselves, through paranoia, than the virus could do.

  You know better than that, he told himself, as they passed through a checkpoint and drove onto the motorway. There were only a handful of vehicles, civilian or military, heading in or out of the city. The threat is very real.

  But he couldn’t help feeling relieved that they were going back into space, leaving the world behind.

  Chapter Six

  Captain Campbell had been oddly quiet during the flight from the estate to Nelson Base. He’d seemed almost relieved that they were on their way back to space. Thomas tended to agree with him. Deep-space combat was relatively simple, compared to the genteel battlegrounds of the country’s aristocracy. Thomas was glad to be away, despite spending the morning going through letters and missives from mothers who wanted to arrange good matches for their sons. It was a pain in the arse, he’d decided. There was no way he was going to push his daughters into marrying someone they barely knew.

  He kept the thought to himself as the shuttle docked, the airlock hissing open to allow them to stumble out and into the security checkpoint. The blood test was as unpleasant as always, although they both knew the importance of ensuring everyone was in their right mind. The aide on the far side saluted them, then led them through a maze of corridors into a giant auditorium. Thomas felt his heart begin to race as he glanced around the chamber. There were at least thirty captains and other officers in the compartment, including a number of American, French and Chinese personnel. Something big was afoot. There wouldn’t have been so much tension in the air if they were planning something simple. An aide offered him a mug of tea, which he accepted. Captain Campbell was already heading down to the front row.

  We wouldn’t be meeting in person if it wasn’t very important, Thomas thought. He was a big fan of holocommunications and conferences - there was nothing to be gained by meeting in person, if it could be handled over the datanet instead - but face-to-face discussions were good for actually getting to know people. What are we planning?

  He took his seat and waited, eyes flickering around the giant compartment. He knew a handful of officers, some personally and some by reputation, but the remainder were strangers. The war had taken one hell of a toll on humanity’s space navies, grinding down the pre-war establishments and forcing the militaries to promote younger officers into suddenly-empty billets. Thomas grimaced at the thought. The war had smoothed out the cracks, teaching the various navies how to work together, but ... it could not be denied that a great deal of institutional knowledge had been lost. It was hard to believe, sometimes, that things would ever go back to normal.

  A rustle ran through the room as Admiral Lady Susan Onarina walked up to the podium, followed by a pair of staff officers. She looked little different from when they’d last met, after Lion had returned from Operation Thunder Child, but there was a hint of anticipation on her face that suggested the fleet was really going to head into the fire. Thomas silently counted the commanding officers, noting there were now over forty starship captains and a handful of groundpounders. Royal Marines, United States Marine Corps, Russian Naval Infantry ... it was impossible to believe they were assembling for something minor. He felt a thrill, despite his natural caution. They might be preparing for a decisive operation.

  “At ease,” Admiral Onarina said. She spoke in English, the shared language of multinational operations. “Welcome to Operation Lightning Strike.”

  Her words hung in the air. Thomas leaned forward. Thunder Child, Lightning Strike ... someone was a fan of old movies and serials. The admiral? Or one of her aides? It was hard to be sure. The MOD preferred to name operations something innocuous, in the hopes of avoiding media attention if the codename leaked out. Thunder Child hinted at too much, in his opinion. Anyone who ran the name through a search engine would find more than enough reasons to suspect the truth.

  “The operation has been authorised by the world governments,” Admiral Onarina continued, calmly. “The precise details of the concept have been classified, as will the outcome of our planning sessions. I should not have to remind you, but I am obliged to do so, that sharing anything with anyone outside the info-compartment will result in national and/or global charges being brought against you. Your governments will not be amused if the secret leaks ahead of time. These days, bulkheads have ears.”

  Thomas nodded. The virus had access to countless human prisoners. Worse, it could turn them into traitors. It was quite possible the virus was monitoring human communications, trying to keep track of human politics. There was certainly no way to prove it wasn’t. It hadn’t been such a concern in the First and Second Interstellar Wars - the Tadpoles and the Foxes had lacked any insight into human society, and vice versa - but the virus had a Rosetta Stone. It could spy on the human race from a distance. They had to assume it was.

  “We have a great deal of ground to cover,” Admiral Onarina said. “With no further ado, I’ll turn you over to Commander Vicar.”

  Vicar stepped forward. He was a small bespectacled man, wearing a uniform in a manner that suggested he wasn’t used to wearing it. Thomas guessed he was an analyst, rather than a proper staff officer or military beancounter. That might be good or bad. An analyst who didn’t give a damn about his career, and had no qualms about speaking truth to power, might be very useful. But, at the same time, his lack of military background would work against him. Thomas knew there were thousands of officers who thought less of civilians. They just didn’t understand what it was like to be in the military.

  A holographic starchart appeared in the centre of the chamber. Thomas studied it thoughtfully, noting the cluster of green, blue, red and orange stars, all linked together by glowing tramlines. There were two more orange - infected - stars than he remembered, although he hadn’t heard anything about more systems falling to the virus. He made a mental note to check on that as quickly as possible. The public might not have been told the entire truth, but he wasn’t a member of the public. He was a naval officer and an aristocrat with a seat in the House of Lords. He needed to know the full situation, damn it.

  Vicar spoke with a calm confidence that belied his appearance. “Two months ago, long-range gravimetric sensors detected gravity waves propagating at FTL speeds, emanating from UAS-4832,” he said. A red star blinked once. “The star system, as you can see, is in a curious position. It is no less than fifty light years fro
m Sol, but - thanks to the idiosyncrasies of the tramline network - is actually impossible to reach directly. As the old joke puts it, the Scots must march north to reach England because there’s no way to travel south.”

  Thomas frowned as the starchart zeroed in on UAS-4832. The problem was obvious. Anyone who wanted to reach UAS-4832, a dim red star of no interest to anyone, would have to travel quite some distance along the tramline network before doubling back to reach their final destination. The star hadn’t even been surveyed before the First Interstellar War, if only because it couldn’t be reached without alien-grade drives. Orbital telescopes had inspected the system, concluded it was largely useless and no one had bothered to visit. Officially, at least. The system was so barren it was unlikely to host a covert colony.

  “The gravity waves were strong enough to convince the navy to dispatch a survey ship to UAS-4832,” Vicar continued. “They reported that the virus was establishing no less than twenty catapults, within easy striking distance of Sol. Given the ...”

  A rustle ran around the compartment as his words sank in. Thomas felt as if he’d been punched in the belly. A single catapult was so expensive that even a Great Power would hesitate to build it. Twenty of them ... Britain’s entire GNP wouldn’t be enough to produce twenty catapults. It sounded more like a fantasy fleet dream than anything else, along the same lines as planners who insisted Britain could deploy a thousand fleet carriers ... if, of course, the country didn’t want to produce anything else. He shook his head in disbelief. Every time he thought he’d come to grips with the true scale of the threat, something happened to convince him that he’d barely begun.

  “Jesus,” Captain Campbell said, quietly.

  For once, Thomas agreed wholeheartedly. Twenty catapults ... he thought he knew, now, how the long-gone Roman Emperors had felt when they’d seen the barbarian hordes riding over the plains towards them. The tramlines forced invading fleets to stick to a predictable course, giving the defenders time to redeploy their forces to meet the threat, but now ... if the entire sky could become a tramline, humanity’s defences would become worse than useless. The ships holding the line would be hopelessly out of position ...

  “Our best-case scenario is that the catapults will be ready within two months,” Vicar said. “They are one-shot weapons, thankfully, but that’s small consolation. Our calculations suggest they can throw enough ships at Sol, in a single transit, to overwhelm the defences and destroy our industrial base. At that point, it will be just a matter of time before they finish the job. Imagine a boot stamping on a human face for the rest of eternity.”

  The virus doesn’t need to oppress anyone, Thomas thought. There’ll be no one left who’ll need oppressing.

  Vicar stepped down. Admiral Onarina stepped forward.

  “The situation is grim,” she said. “On the face of it, as you can see, if we do not take out those catapults quickly we will be defeated. There will be no hope of holding the line. Either we call our ships back to Earth, allowing the virus to claim the remainder of the human sphere or we risk ignoring the threat and losing Earth when they put the catapults into service. However, it does offer us an opportunity as well as a threat. Sally?”

  Another officer - a young woman - stepped forward. “Operation Lightning Strike is divided into two sections,” she said. “Phase One involves capturing or destroying the catapults before they can be put into service. Phase Two involves making use of the catapults ourselves. As you can see” - the starchart changed, again - “the catapults could easily be used to put a fleet in the enemy’s rear. If we can make use of the catapults ourselves, we can strike the enemy in the back and - hopefully - do immense damage to their industrial base.”

  Thomas frowned. The concept seemed solid, on paper, but it sounded like a plan dreamed up by an armchair admiral. There was no way to be sure they could capture the catapults, let alone put them to use. And even if they did, there would be no way to jump back. They’d have to fight their way through the tramlines, all too aware the enemy would be straining every sinew to block their retreat. He looked around, silently gauging how many starships were going to be thrown into enemy territory. The human race could win the battle, but lose the war.

  An American had the same thought. “How do we know we can use the catapults?”

  “The virus’s tech is odd, by our standards,” Sally said. Thomas had the impression she’d anticipated the question. “A lot of their control systems are blurred into its biological network, rather as we use command and control implants. Its processing power is so great, compared to a merely human brain, that it is capable of multitasking on an incredible scale. However, the systems themselves are solid tech. In some ways, they’re actually simpler than ours. We cannot expect them to do something that requires long-term effort, according to the techs, but we should be able to get them up and running long enough to make transit. We only need them to work once.”

  “And then we’ll be trapped behind enemy lines,” Thomas pointed out.

  “Yes,” a French-accented voice said. “How do we even know we’ll be making transit into enemy space?”

  “Intelligence has been studying the remnants of infected ships for the last decade, ever since the war began,” Admiral Onarina said. If she was annoyed by the question, she didn’t show it. “The precise details are classified, but suffice it to say that we have a rough idea of the size of enemy-held space. It looks odd by our standards, suggesting the virus has overwhelmed at least four interstellar powers, yet ... we think we’ve pinpointed a handful of alien industrial nodes. We make transit, we blow the nodes to dust and head home as quickly as possible.”

  Her voice hardened. “We don’t know, yet, if we’ll be able to proceed to Phase Two. There is a chance the catapults will be destroyed or discovered to be unusable, when we hit the system and try to capture them. It’s quite possible we’ll accomplish nothing more than buying time to develop new weapons and put them into mass production. And yes, there’s a chance we’ll be trapped behind enemy lines. The GATO council would not have authorised the mission if they hadn’t been certain we have no choice. If the virus brings those catapults online, it will win.”

  She paused. “Defeat means the end of the world. There will be no hope of resistance, no hope of mounting a war of liberation ... nothing, apart from the virus. Bear that in mind.”

  “If nothing else, we can force it to start rebuilding the catapults from scratch,” Captain Campbell said. He sounded as if he was certain the plan would succeed. “That will buy us some more time.”

  Admiral Onarina nodded. “And all of this leads to a second point.”

  Her eyes swept the compartment. “The BioBombs were not as effective as we had hoped, but they were effective. Accordingly, we will be deploying them wherever possible. Our goal will be to destroy the infection wherever we find it, regardless of the cost. The host bodies are beyond recovery. We will seek to give them a clean end, rather than remain trapped in a living death. Many people will argue that we’re planning to commit genocide” - she held up a hand to stave off protests - “but we have no choice. We must destroy the infection, root and branch, or it will destroy us.”

  Thomas shuddered, remembering the sensor images from the last mission. They’d sentenced an entire colony world to death. Cold logic told him the colonists had been dead from the moment they’d been infected, when their minds had been raped and their bodies had been stolen, but it was hard to believe. The Royal Navy was supposed to prevent atrocities, not commit them. And yet ... he felt sick as he contemplated the reports from London. Very little had been released publicly, but he knew how to read between the lines. A little less luck, and worse timing, might have resulted in a far greater loss of life. He wondered, grimly, if someone would have insisted on dropping a BioBomb on London. The cure might have been worse than the disease.

  Or a nuke, he thought. There’d been plans to use atomic bombs in the hopes of wiping out a handful of deadly diseases. None of them
had ever been put into practice, but ... now, that might change. We might have to wipe out an entire city to save the rest of the country.

  Admiral Onarina tapped a control. The display vanished. “The provisional operational plan has been sent to your terminals,” she said. “Please inspect them, then feel free to propose alternatives. The plans will not be finalised until the allied contingents arrive. Once they do, we’ll depart Earth and commence the operation as quickly as possible.”

  Allied contingents? Thomas blinked. Tadpoles? Or Foxes?

  The thought bothered him. He had nothing against humanity’s enemies-turned-allies, although he knew there were millions of humans who disliked the Tadpoles after the Bombardment of Earth, but it would be extremely difficult to coordinate a large multiracial fleet. He wasn’t even sure human and alien ships could work together, let alone lock their individual datanets into a single entity. There’d be all sorts of problems, from computers that wouldn’t work together to cultural assumptions and blindspots and ...

  They said the same about multinational formations too, he reminded himself. And we worked out all the kinks eventually.

  Sure, his own thoughts answered. And how many people died while we were learning how to do it?