Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch (43 page)

James sighed, but listened carefully.  “Do it,” he said, when Anderson had finished.  “We're still deep in enemy territory.”

***

Kurt ached dreadfully when he stumbled out of his starfighter and staggered into the ready room.  Behind him, the other pilots looked just as battered, with some of them glancing around for faces they knew they’d never see again.  Kurt stripped off his flight suit as soon as he made it into the compartment, then practically dived into the shower and allowed the water to massage some of the kinks out of his body.  Behind him, the younger pilots did the same.

He wondered, briefly, just how they were coping with the attack on the Old Lady.  They knew – and if they hadn't known before, they sure as hell knew it now – just how vulnerable a single starfighter was to enemy attack.  But the Old Lady had seemed damn near invincible, certainly when compared to the modern carriers  And yet, she’d been attacked and badly damaged.  If the aliens had targeted the launching bays, they would have crippled her ability to continue the fight.

Cursing under his breath, heedless of his dignity, he stumbled out of the shower and grabbed for a towel, rubbing down his body until he was relatively dry.  There were spare flight suits in the wardrobe, just waiting for pilots who needed to dress again, after a shower.  His old one would need to be cleaned before he could wear it again.  Behind him, he caught sight of Rose and shook his head when she met his eyes.  He was too tired to do anything apart from sleep.

But it couldn't be allowed.

“Beta and Charlie Squadrons are to use the sleep machines,” he ordered.  They weren't intact squadrons, not any longer, but there was no point in breaking them up.  He didn't have time to plot out a reconfiguration in any case.  “Alpha and Gamma are to remain on alert.”

He ignored the groans from the rooks.  They didn't realise that the aliens could return to the offensive at any time, once they realised that the fleet was trying to make its escape.  Not that he blamed them, really.  The bigger picture was the Admiral’s responsibility.  Their task was to fight the aliens and stay alive.

“No arguing, not now,” he snapped, tiredly.  He suspected that half of the pilots would fall asleep very quickly, unless they took stimulants.  But the stimulants came with a price tag attached.  “I know; you all feel rotten and you want to sleep.  I don’t blame you.  But we need to remain alert for a couple of hours  Once Beta and Charlie have had their naps, we’ll get some sleep too.”

He staggered over to a cushy armchair and sat down, trying to look reasonably alert.  But he had the feeling it wasn't working.  If the aliens attacked, the task force was in serious trouble ...

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Major,” a voice said.  “Wake up!”

Charles snapped awake instantly, one hand grabbing for the pistol he'd positioned under his makeshift pillow.  It was a precaution that had served him well in the past, although – in theory – the aliens shouldn't have been able to get through the defences surrounding the FOB.  But then, they'd said the same about insurgents in the Middle East.  He looked around and saw one of the Rhino’s aides standing there, looking worried.

“They picked up an emergency signal from the orbiting recon platforms,” the aide said.  “The Rhino demands your immediate presence.”

“Gotcha,” Charles said.  He stood, then picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder.  The Rhino had issued strict orders that everyone was to go armed at all times, no exceptions.  It was another sensible precaution, Charles had decided, after months of training together.  “I’m on my way.”

The Rhino was standing in front of a bank of consoles in the emergency command vehicle, smoking a cigar that smelt faintly unpleasant.  Charles saluted quickly, then swore as he saw the red icons on the display.  A handful of large and evidently unfriendly starships were approaching the planet at terrifying speed.

“They came out of Tramline Three,” the Rhino said, without prompting.  “We don’t have a solid lock on them at this distance, but at least one of them is either a carrier or a troopship comparable to ours.”

Charles swore.  “So they’re going to attack us while the fleet’s away,” he said, sourly.  “Is there any word from the Admiral?”

“Nothing,” the Rhino said.  “But I wasn't expecting to hear anything for several days.”

Charles felt cold ice clench around his heart.  If the aliens had launched a counterattack, they presumably had something in mind to deal with the fleet as well as the forces on the ground, perhaps an ambush in the Target Two system.  Or one group of aliens might have launched a counterattack without consulting the others; it wasn't easy to coordinate human attacks across several star systems and everything they’d seen indicated that the aliens had the same problem.

They came out of Tramline Three
, he told himself. 
But the fleet went through Tramline Four
.

“So we prepare to repel attack,” he said, grimly.  “Or can we evacuate in time?”

“Not without being caught on the hop,” the Rhino said.  “Even if we abandoned everything, we’d still have to get the men back to the ships and start running.  And then we’d be caught.”

Charles nodded in understanding.  The transports, even the colossal American ships, were far slower than any of the alien ships.  They’d be overrun and destroyed long before they made it to the tramline.  No, better to fight it out on the ground than be picked off helplessly while trying to flee.

“We’ll stay near the alien cities, apart from the stay-behind teams,” the Rhino added.  “It might deter them from simply smashing us from orbit, once they get control of the high orbitals.”

“They’ll certainly fire on the plasma canons,” Charles warned.  “Their tactics for assaulting a defended planet might just be better than ours.”

“Maybe,” the Rhino said.  “But we will see.”

He looked back down at the console, then up at Charles.  “We expect to be attacked in just under three hours,” he warned.  “And we may be attacked from the water too.”

Charles nodded, slowly.  The aliens, having realised they were under observation, had killed all of the dolphins and destroyed most of the remote spying devices.  Since then, they’d probably been preparing to take part in a counterattack when their forces started to regain the high orbitals.  It was what
he
would have done, were the situation reversed.

“I’ll deploy my forces,” he said.  “And you’d better do the same.”

“Make sure they’re in full stealth mode,” the Rhino added.  “You don’t want to risk drawing fire from orbit.”

“Understood,” Charles said.

The next two hours passed in a whirlwind of activity as the ground forces prepared for the coming onslaught.  The heavy plasma cannons, prepped for their first combat test, were scattered all over the shoreline, alarmingly close to the water’s edge.  Others were positioned some distance inland, providing additional fire to prevent the aliens from settling into orbit and then launching shuttles or missiles towards the human bases.  American tanks were carefully positioned to provide fire support for the armoured combat suits, although Charles couldn't help noticing that most of them had been placed on automatic.  The tanks simply hadn't coped well with alien weapons.

He found himself looking up into the sky as the sun rose higher, automatically tracking pieces of space debris that were still falling into the planet’s atmosphere.  Absently, he hoped the space debris would make it harder for the aliens to land, although he knew that was nothing more than wishful thinking.  It hadn't prevented the humans from landing either, had it?  But the aliens might have more reason to be concerned about the planet’s biosphere than the human occupiers.

And if they blame us for rendering the planet uninhabitable
, he thought coldly,
how long will it be before they start doing the same to Earth and the other settled worlds
?

He smiled, recalling a family legend.  One of his ancestors had worked as part of the clean-up crews in 2060, sweeping dead satellites and space junk out of Earth’s orbit and transferring them to the smelters on the moon, where they had been turned into something more useful.  He’d left behind a log that Charles had read, as a child; he’d noted that the space junk had simply been too dangerous to leave in place, even though they were part of history.  Now, he couldn't help wondering if the aliens would do the same.  They might start building their own orbital towers, sooner or later.

His radio crackled.  “Enemy ships are picking up speed,” a voice stated.  “They’ll be in orbit in twenty minutes.”

“Understood,” Charles said.  The data from New Russia suggested the aliens couldn't track very low powered transmissions, particularly compressed microbursts, but they’d been warned to be careful anyway.  Radiating anything that might be picked up from orbit was as good as sending a direct message to the aliens, inviting them to kill the humans on the ground.  “We’ll be ready for them.”

He found himself shifting uncomfortably in his suit as he scanned the shoreline.  It looked safe and tranquil, almost as exotic as the beaches he’d enjoyed during a short deployment to Kota Kinabalu, years ago.  There was a shortage of women, both local and tourist, but apart from that the beach was beautiful.  The waves looked surprisingly mild as they washed against the sand, nothing like the waves he’d battled during his training.  But the aliens might be only a few metres away from them, watching from just underneath the water.  All the simulations agreed that it might as well be completely transparent to alien eyes.

“I hate hurrying up and waiting,” someone muttered.

“Quiet,” Charles ordered.  He privately agreed, but they had to maintain communications discipline.  “You’ll wish it was still quiet when the shit hits the fan.”

Alerts flashed up in his HUD as the first alien starships entered orbit, only to come under fire from the plasma cannons on the ground.  For a moment, he thought they could win outright, then realised that the plasma cannons weren't doing as much damage as they had hoped.  The aliens didn't have much better armour than humanity’s, but what they did have was designed to cope with plasma weapons fire rather than anything else.  It suggested, to his eyes, that the aliens might have their own internal wars as well as fights with other races.  Maybe there
was
a second faction of aliens out there, one more friendly to humanity than the others.

“Enemy ships are falling back,” the Rhino announced.  “But that was only the beginning ...”

New alerts flashed up in the HUD, followed by an explosion in the distance.  Charles swore under his breath as he realised that one of the plasma cannons had been taken out, with no obvious cause.  Moments later, new alerts sounded; the aliens had somehow managed to get a party behind the lines, right in place to launch an attack.  Charles puzzled over it for a long moment, then realised the truth.

“Sir, they used a network of underwater tunnels to get around,” he said.  Once, long ago, he'd gone caving in Wales.  Some of the caves had been partly underwater and downright eerie.  “They might have other settlements we never even thought to look for, under the ground.”

“Not an issue at the moment,” the Rhino said.  “You have incoming.”

Charles nodded as another series of alerts sounded, this time alerting his men to enemy forces advancing up towards the shoreline.  Moments later, a giant mechanical crab-like monstrosity burst out of the water and advanced threateningly towards the Royal Marines.  For a long moment, Charles could only stare at the construct.  It reminded him of some of the attempts to make
real
AT-ATs, armoured vehicles that walked rather than drove.  But the human race had never managed to make the concept
work
without creating something terrifyingly vulnerable.  The aliens, on the other hand, had clearly put a great deal more thought into the concept.

It makes sense for them
, he realised, as more of the giant machines appeared, their weapons already moving round to target the humans. 
Underwater, legs are so much more useful than wheels
.

“Fire,” he ordered.

Five missiles lanced out and slammed into the alien machines.  Three of them exploded into towering fireballs, two more were mildly damaged.  The aliens opened fire at the same moment, firing their plasma cannons as if they were machine guns with unlimited bullets.  Charles clung to the ground as blast after blast passed over his head, blazing through the vegetation and setting it alight.  He wondered, as he took aim at one of the advancing monsters with his suit’s missile launcher, if the aliens wouldn't find the fire discomforting.  They needed wetter air than humanity ...

He fired a pair of missiles towards the machine, then swore inwardly as he saw a second troop of vehicles emerging from the waves.  Muttering commands to his men, he called down a volley of fire from the mortar emplacements and ran backwards, relying on the incoming fire to shield his men.  Two suits sent distress calls, seconds before they died; the remainder made it safely to the next trench.  Behind them, the alien vehicles kept moving forwards, slowly but steadily.

“They’re easy to outrun, even without the suits,” he reported.  “We could probably start putting mines in their path now.”

“See to it,” the Rhino ordered.  “Slow them down as much as possible.”

Charles checked the overall situation and gritted his teeth as he realised that it was rapidly spinning out of control.  The aliens had launched attacks directed against every human base, even though they had to have been put together very quickly.  Part of him was mildly impressed.  A human force might not be able to react so quickly when taken by surprise.