Ark Royal 3: The Trafalgar Gambit Read online

  Rose sat down next to him. “So we have ... three options,” she said, after a moment. “They’re reporters, they’re someone involved with the government or they’re interstellar spies.”

  She frowned. “Reporters aren't big on delayed gratification,” she added. “And besides, blackmail could open them up to all manner of interesting criminal charges. You and they might end up sharing the same cell. That leaves a government conspiracy or international spies. I’d lean towards the latter.”

  “But if they were in the government,” Kurt objected, “they could make sure we were both jailed ...”

  “They also wouldn't need to resort to blackmail to force you to do what they wanted,” Rose countered. “If they’re the government, why bother with blackmail when they could just issue orders? You’re not the Admiral. I don’t think they’d need something out of a Z-List Evil Government Conspiracy Theory Movie to get you to do whatever they wanted.”

  She paused. “And that suggests international involvement. But for what?”

  “They knew I was going to Luna City,” Kurt said. “How would they know that without having access to the naval datanet?”

  “There’s no shortage of international officers at the Academy,” Rose reminded him. “And where else could you go for a short leave?”

  Kurt frowned. She was right. There had been no shuttles to Earth, Sin City was closed and anywhere else would have consumed half of his leave time just getting there and back. Luna City was the only logical destination. And, given access to the city’s public access datanet, the blackmailers could probably have tracked him right up to the moment he entered the cafe and sat down. Fred might even have been hard on his heels.

  “And there was a possibility you’d be summoned elsewhere too,” Rose added. “Weren’t you on the list of people to attend a conference on countering alien starfighter tactics.”

  “I was uninvited,” Kurt said. “Too much work to do here.”

  Rose wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “You have to go to the Admiral,” she said. “We have to go to the Admiral.”

  Kurt stared at her. “But ...”

  “This is an international spy mission being carried out under his nose,” Rose said, flatly. “If you keep quiet about it, you’ll probably wind up carrying the blame for the whole affair – assuming, of course, that we survive. And if that happens, you and I will be lucky not to be put up against a bulkhead and shot. But if we help the Admiral catch the spies, we will be able to request a honourable discharge as a reward.”

  “Your career will be destroyed,” Kurt said. He cursed himself under his breath. “Rose ...”

  “Shut up,” Rose said. “I’m a big girl. I made the decision to fuck you because I believed we would die soon and I didn't want to die without feeling some human contact. If we’d stopped it then, it would probably have been fine. You could have gone back to your wife and I could have found someone nearer my own age. Instead ... we developed feelings for each other.”

  She poked him with her finger, making him wince. “You’re not a rapist,” she said, “and I am not a helpless victim. We got ourselves into this mess and we’re damn well going to do whatever it takes to get out of it with our skins and reputations intact. And if that means baring everything for the Admiral ... well, we can do it. We don’t have a choice.”

  Kurt shook his head, slowly. She was right, he knew, and if it had been just him at risk, he would have done so without a second thought. But his children were also at risk.

  “And what will happen to them,” Rose asked when he said that out loud, “if they discover their father is branded a traitor? Because that’s what will happen if you surrender to blackmail and do as they tell you.”

  She stood up, then pulled him to his feet. “Kurt, I know how you feel,” she said. “But you can't let fear blind you, even if it’s for your children.”

  Kurt sighed and leaned into her embrace. “How can you be so cold about this?”

  “One of us has to be,” Rose said. She sighed. “You’re the one who taught me to consider a situation and evaluate it thoroughly if there’s no need to act immediately. And this situation needs to be considered carefully. They think they have you by the balls – and they’re right. That's what’s stopping you from thinking properly.”

  She gently pushed him away from her, then straightened. “Get yourself cleaned up in the head,” she ordered. “And then we will go see the Admiral.”

  Kurt nodded, cursing himself once again. Perhaps they could have escaped notice completely if they’d broken off the affair after their first return to Earth. He was fairly sure there were at least three other couples who’d had an affair, then been separated by being assigned to different ships. But he had been stupid. No matter the problem with Molly, no matter the growing awareness that he and his wife were slipping and sliding towards divorce, he could have prevented himself from having an affair with a subordinate. There was always Sin City and its endless chains of brothels.

  He stepped into the washroom and studied himself in the mirror. His face looked pale and wan, reminding him that he'd slept poorly for the last few days. He turned on the tap, poured water into the bowl, then washed his face thoroughly. It didn't make him feel any better. His life was about to change, which was bad enough, but he'd also damaged his children’s lives ...

  “Come on,” Rose ordered. She looked presentable, surprisingly so. “There isn't time for you to do your makeup.”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Kurt grumbled. “Rose ...”

  Rose stopped and looked at him. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kurt said. “I ...”

  “I think we have already established it wasn't entirely your fault,” Rose snapped. “It was me who made the first move, not you. Yes, you fucked up; I fucked up too. And now all we can do is make a full confession and take the consequences.”

  ***

  “I can't say I’m too happy with the stress tests,” Anderson said. “The modified Puller Drive is developing power fluctuations at odd moments.”

  Ted studied the display, wishing he knew more about how the system actually worked. The math, he’d been told, was too complex for the average spacer. Even engineers only mastered the bare bones, although they knew the hardware inside out. Or maybe the boffins were just keeping it to themselves to ensure they weren't subverted by someone from outside the system.

  “I see,” he said. “What will this mean for us?”

  “At best, we may have to replace the whole system when we get back home,” Anderson said. “At worst, we may lose the modified drive in the heart of alien territory.”

  Ted swore. Humanity’s Puller Drive had been heavily limited, compared to the alien drive system. The ships had been modified after an alien system had been captured intact, but Ark Royal had never been designed to have her drive modified. If they lost the alien drive system, they would have to pick their way home – if possible – along a course that would be easily predicable. The aliens would have no trouble intercepting them before they could make it back to human space.

  “That could be bad,” he said. If they had time, he would have ordered an immediate return to Earth. But that would have delayed the mission for weeks, perhaps months, and crippled the ship as they tore the drive housing apart to replace the drive. “Can you keep it in check?”

  “I think so, but if we take another pounding the drive might come apart completely,” Anderson said. “It won't be good, sir.”

  “No,” Ted agreed. “It won’t.”

  He looked at the starchart, thinking hard. The tramlines they needed to use to reach Target One were alien; they couldn't be accessed without an alien-designed drive. But if they didn't use them, they’d have no hope of reaching Target One without travelling through too many unexplored and potentially occupied star systems. They had to rely on a drive system that was on the verge of breaking down.

  “Keep me informed,” he ordered, finally. “What about the other matters?”
r />   “The sealed compartments have been assigned to the research teams,” Anderson assured him. “But we don’t have any idea what the aliens would consider acceptable quarters.”

  “We know they like it hot and moist,” Ted said. The alien captives had been given temperature controls and shown how to use them. They’d been happiest, it seemed, in temperatures that made Australia seem cool. “Make sure you separate their system completely from our own.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Anderson said. He reached out and rubbed the bulkhead. “The Old Lady will do her duty.”

  Ted had to smile. He’d been assigned to Ark Royal because the Royal Navy hadn't wanted the embarrassment of sacking a knighted hero. Anderson, on the other hand, had been assigned to Ark Royal simply because there was nowhere else for him. His skill with the outdated systems – to say nothing of jury-rigged spare parts from every interstellar power – wouldn't fit on any of the modern carriers.

  “I know she will,” he said. So far, there had been no sign of the aliens, but he was sure that would change. In their place, he’d picket the systems between Terra Nova and Target One, if only with a couple of starships. “I have faith in her.”

  The hatch bleeped, then opened. Ted lifted his eyebrows when he saw both the CAG and one of his squadron commanders, looking like naughty children. He half-expected to see a Marine escorting them into the office. But they were alone.

  “Admiral,” Schneider said. “We need to talk with you.”

  Ted had a sudden sense of doom. “Very well,” he said. He nodded to Anderson, who picked up his terminal and left the compartment. “Talk.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Ted said, once the halting explanation had come to an end. “You’ve been having an illicit relationship since Alien-1, you’ve continued with the relationship ever since returning to Earth ... and you are now being blackmailed. Correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Schneider said.

  “You absolute idiot,” Ted said.

  He shook his head in disbelief. Everyone knew that the regulations on sexual relations onboard ship were skirted more than anyone cared to admit, but there were limits. A relation between two people of different ranks would always suffer from a power imbalance, raising the prospect of coercion and naked force being used to push someone into bed. How could a relationship develop properly when one party could punish the other at will? And that, he knew, didn't even take into consideration the damage it would do to morale.

  Everyone would be looking at Schneider’s past decisions now, hunting for any signs of favouritism he might have shown towards his lover. She’d survived when so many others had died, Ted knew. Had she been deliberately kept out of the line of battle? And how many others had died when she should have died? He might have done nothing to help or hinder her career and it would still be disastrous to both of them. They should both be thrown into the brig, pending an investigation and court martial, followed by dishonourable discharge.

  “It’s at times like this,” Ted continued, “that I wish we’d kept the lash, rather than rum and sodomy. What the hell were you two thinking?”

  Rose Labara met his eyes evenly. “We were thinking we were about to die,” she said, simply. “We did not believe there would be any future for either of us.”

  Ted understood. He’d almost crawled into a bottle when it seemed the aliens had them trapped in a dead end. Schneider and Rose had found what solace they could in each other’s arms – and if it had stopped there, it would probably have gone completely unnoticed. But instead, they’d kept up the affair and finally run into real trouble. Someone was using their affair as a weapon against Ark Royal and her crew.

  “There may not be,” he said, bluntly. He silently awarded them both points for coming forward, even at the cost of their careers. “I doubt either of you can look forward to a comfortable life in future.”

  “Yes, sir,” Schneider said. Oddly, he sounded a little relieved. “We will face whatever judgement you choose to mete out.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Ted said, dryly. “I’m going to call the Captain and Major Parnell. The latter, in particular, has some counter-intelligence experience. You are going to sit down with him and go through everything that happened, right from the start, in the hopes of locating whoever is trying to blackmail you. Once this affair is finished ...”

  He paused, meeting their eyes. “Once this matter is finished, I will make my decision concerning your future,” he warned. “I suggest you don’t try to hold anything back.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said, together.

  “I can’t afford to take either of you off active duty and toss you into the brig, no matter how much you deserve it,” Ted added. “However, I will expect you to remember just how much trouble you’re in and refrain from doing anything that might arouse suspicion. You will not meet in private for any reason. Do you understand me?”

  The two lovers exchanged glances, then nodded reluctantly. Ted was old enough to be Schneider’s father – barely – but he wasn't so old he’d forgotten what it was like to be in love. They had to have developed feelings for one another or they wouldn't have stayed together after their first return to Earth. Being told they could not see one another would hurt.

  But they could have done a great deal of damage if they’d been caught earlier, he thought, crossly. He had never been one to care about what his crew did on their time off – he knew standards had slipped a great deal while Ark Royal had floated uselessly in the Naval Reserve – but this was different. This could have seriously damaged his ship’s reputation.

  He considered his options, briefly. It was the Captain who would have the final responsibility for deciding their fate – or it would have been, if the two pilots hadn't been mixed up in blackmail and espionage. Fitzwilliam could have punished them how he saw fit and the Admiralty would not have objected, not when they were reluctant to cast doubt on a Captain’s role as master of his ship. But with intelligence staffers mixed up in the whole affair ... Ted knew they might be offered amnesty in exchange for cooperation. Or they might be put in front of a court martial board afterwards anyway, no matter what they did.

  “Dismissed,” he said, quietly. “I expect you to inform me the moment they get in touch with you. And don’t fuck up.”

  He watched them leave, then tapped his console and called both Fitzwilliam and Major Parnell to his office. The Marine had a nasty scar running down the side of his face that hadn't been there before, Ted noted, but he didn't ask any questions. Everyone, even the Marines, had been suffering badly from emotional whiplash since the return to Earth. They’d probably resorted to boxing matches to keep their skills up.

  “We have a problem,” he said, bluntly. He recorded all conversations in his office, thankfully. “You need to listen to this.”

  Captain Fitzwilliam said nothing until the recording came to an end, then swore. “Someone is trying to blackmail one of my crewmen?”

  “Yes,” Ted said, shortly. It was a particularly nasty case, he had to admit. Schneider wasn't the only one at risk. His family – and his lover – would also be imperilled if the recordings were released. “And they may have more complex motives than money.”

  “It is a pity we don’t have the original recording,” Parnell observed. “It would be informative to have some idea of just where they were filmed.”

  “That raises another set of questions,” Ted agreed. “What are we dealing with here?”

  Parnell considered it slowly. “I think they’re right and its someone international,” he said. “A spy – probably more than one – is on the ship.”

  “Wonderful,” Ted said. “We have three foreign ambassadors, thirty-two foreign support staff of various ranks and a handful of others.”

  “But the spy might be a British crewman,” Parnell said. “Although in that case approaching Schneider and applying blackmail might be unnecessary.”

  He shook his shaved head. “Th
ey will need something they believe Schneider can get for them,” he added. “Otherwise there would be no point in playing the blackmail card too soon.”

  “Those stupid idiots,” Fitzwilliam said. “What the hell were they thinking?”

  “That they didn't have long to live,” Parnell said, quietly.

  He looked down at the deck, thinking hard. “With your permission, Captain, I would like to bring a couple of other Marines into the loop and start working on ways to catch the spy,” he said. “He’ll have to make contact with Schneider at some point or the whole affair will be worse than useless. When he does, we’ll have an opportunity to catch him and cart him off for interrogation.”

  “Which will open a whole new can of worms if the spy is on an ambassador’s staff,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. “They have diplomatic immunity.”

  “Diplomatic immunity is not a licence to spy,” Parnell countered. “We might not be able to try the spy and throw him out the airlock, but we could put him in the brig until we returned to Earth.”