Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (14 page)

She braced herself, then pressed her fingers against the buzzer.  The hatch slid open at once, something that puzzled her.  It was possible, she supposed, that the captain had keyed her into the lock, but the automatic system should have denied her access until the captain authorised it, assuming he was in his cabin.  Unless something was wrong ... her hand reached for the pistol on her belt, before she told herself, quite firmly, that she was being silly.  The captain was unlikely to be in real trouble.

The cabin was larger than her own, according to the ship’s blueprints, but it was so crammed with clobber that it looked smaller.  Captain Blake, it seemed, was a bit of a packrat.  Boxes and suitcases lay everywhere, some lying open, others closed and firmly locked.  She stepped forward carefully, taking a moment to admire a painting placed neatly on the bulkhead, looking around for the captain.  He was sitting in a stuffed armchair, drinking from a steaming cup and reading a book.  It snapped closed before she could make out the title.

“Commander,” Captain Blake said.  “What brings you to my humble abode?”

“I thought you would appreciate a personal report on the new midshipmen,” Susan said.  She found it impossible not to glance around, taking in the piles of books, chessboards and several objects she didn’t recognise.  Judging by what was in view, the captain had enough clothes to outfit the entire senior staff.  “They’re fitting in very well.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Captain Blake said.  “One would expect no less from the daughter of Admiral Fitzwilliam.”

“Niece, sir,” Susan corrected.  “She’s his niece.”

“He clearly had a hand in raising her,” Captain Blake said.  “I served under him, you know, back on the border guard.  He was a good officer.”

Susan shrugged.  She’d only met Admiral Fitzwilliam once, shortly after the Anglo-Indian War.  The Admiralty had awarded the Victoria Cross to the entire crew of
Warspite
and the task force’s CO - Admiral Fitzwilliam - had been the one to pin the plaque underneath the ship’s commissioning plate.  She rather doubted he remembered her.  To him, she would have been just another wet-behind-the-ears midshipwoman.

“She probably deserves some sort of reward,” the captain added.  “What do you think?”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate, sir,” Susan said.  “She has a long way to go before she’s ready for promotion.”

It was hard to keep the irritation out of her voice.  She hadn't had as much time as she would have liked to observe the new midshipmen, but there had been no suggestion that Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam was ready to use her family name to get her way.  There was certainly no sign she was a spoiled aristocratic brat like too many girls she recalled from school.  But too much favouritism, too soon, could easily change a decent girl into a complete bitch.  She’d seen that happen at school too.

“There will be dinners, of course, when we reach Marina,” the captain said, after a moment.  “Perhaps she could be invited.  As the junior deck representative, of course.”

That would be more of a punishment
, Susan thought. 
She
would have hated it, back when she’d been a junior officer: too low-ranking to relax and enjoy the meal or to sneak off early, before the innumerable speeches. 
We should be saving that for someone who’s been really bad.

“The opportunity is traditionally offered to the first middy,” she said, instead.  She had her concerns about
him
too, but it was just possible he wouldn’t see the assignment as a punishment.  “But the Americans may not wish us to bring midshipmen.”

Captain Blake frowned.  “Traditionally, one
does
bring a midshipman or two.”

“The Yanks may have different customs,” Susan said.  She’d reviewed the arrangements for a handful of diplomatic dinners on
Formidable
, but they'd been supervised by trained staff from the Foreign Office.  Dining with an American Admiral and his staff, hopefully, would be rather less stuffy.  “Besides, there are twenty-one of our ships due to attend and thirty-seven of theirs.  That’s nearly sixty captains alone.”

And Admiral Boskone may not be too pleased if he sees you
, she added, silently.

“True,” the captain agreed.  He looked down at the deck, resting his hands on his knees as he considered.  “However, we must make sure she has an opportunity to shine.”

He glanced up.  “Assign her to the shuttle crews, once she’s finished her time in the tactical department,” he ordered.  “That will broaden her mind a little too.”

Susan nodded, slowly.  It
was
the sort of experience young officers needed, although it tended to come
after
they’d mastered their bridge duties.  And yet, it
could
be justified, if the captain remained insistent.  Young officers needed to learn how to command, sooner or later, and any mistakes made in the shuttlebay wouldn't reflect too badly on the rest of her career.

And it will give her a break from bridge duties
, she thought. 
I’ve wanted to alter the training patterns for a while now
.

“Midshipman Bosworth will also require a set of non-bridge duties,” she said, out loud.  “I ..”

“Choose one you feel suits him,” the captain said, waving his hand dismissively.  “I leave it with you.”

Social-climber
, Susan thought, rudely.  At least the captain wasn't making noises about having poor Midshipwoman Fitzwilliam assigned to his personal staff.  That would probably have killed her career as surely as if she’d committed mutiny in the heat of battle.  It would certainly have made it impossible for anyone to take her seriously. 
And do you really think Admiral Fitzwilliam will look kindly on you for coddling his niece
?

“Yes, sir,” she said.  “And I’ll inform you when we have a complete set of tactical plans for the war games.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Jump completed, Commander.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reed,” Susan said.  “Tactical?”

“Picking up low-level signals from Marina II, but nothing threatening within immediate detection range,” Mason said.  “Unless it’s in stealth, of course.”

Susan nodded, curtly.  Marina was unusual; a G2 star located roughly midway between British and American space, but not one that had given birth to either habitable planets or an asteroid belt.  There was a low-level terraforming program underway on Marina II, yet without a clear settlement plan it had to be regarded as highly speculative.  But then, America had plenty of small groups that wanted their own planet and were prepared to pay for it.  The system was really too close to other inhabited systems to be passed lightly to a potential future enemy.

“Send our IFF to Admiral Boskone,” she ordered.  Unless there had been a delay, the admiral and his task force, returning from the borders, should have reached Marina ahead of
Vanguard
and her small flotilla.  “Inform him that we will reach Marina in roughly ten hours from now, then order the screen to flank us.”

“Aye, Commander,” Parkinson said.

“Helm, set course for Marina,” Susan added.  “Engage.”

“Aye, Commander,” Reed said.  Another low quiver ran through the battleship as the drives came online.  “Drives online.  All systems functioning at optimal levels.”

Susan nodded, tightly.  Commander Bothell hadn’t hesitated to replace any components that were showing signs of wear and tear, despite increasingly irked complaints from the beancounters back on Earth.  Military gear was tough, designed to endure months of harsh treatment, but she couldn’t find any fault with Commander Bothell’s procedures.  A faulty component was one that might break in the midst of a battle, regardless of the bureaucratic complaints.  It was cheaper to replace a drive motivator than an entire battleship.

And we can do without them burning out as we’re trying to run
, she thought, as the display slowly began to fill with icons.  The star and its five daughter worlds were easy to detect and track, but she knew from long experience that any starships might well have altered course or changed position before their emissions had been detected and logged. 
If the Americans happen to be planning an ambush
...

She smiled at the thought, then frowned.  Admiral Boskone was reputed to be a hard-ass; he might well have asked the Americans to try to sneak up on
Vanguard
or sent one of his own ships to do it.  The mission would have been chancy during a live-fire exercise - the near-disaster during the last set of war games had been enough to convince the Admiralty to change the rules with astonishing speed - but now, it risked nothing more than embarrassment for one side or the other.  And it was unlikely that the Americans would have had any trouble predicting
Vanguard’s
rough location.  She would have been surprised if there hadn't been a stealthed picket in the previous system.

“Run out a shell of recon drones,” she ordered, curtly.  It would be costly, yet most of the drones could be recovered and refurbished.  The beancounters wouldn't be pleased, but they wouldn't be pleased by anything less than the spacers leaving all their shiny new toys in the wrapping so they could be returned to the shop, if necessary.  “And alter their positions randomly, so we’re wrapped in a sensor haze.”

“Aye, Commander,” Mason said.  He looked up from his console.  “You’re expecting someone to start playing silly buggers?”

“You never know,” Susan said.  “You never know.”

She leaned back in the command chair and reached for her datapad.  Someone had insisted, years ago, that military service was ninety-nine percent boredom and she was inclined to agree.  There was little they could do, save for exchanging recorded messages, before they reached the fleet, gathering in orbit around the second planet.  If they’d been at war, she would have made sure they were creeping around the system, but now?  All she could really do was wait and catch up with her paperwork.

At least the midshipmen are taking advantage of the crawl to track the location of the other ships,
she thought, calmly. 
They won’t be bored, at least
.

Civilians rarely grasped, at least in her experience, just how immeasurably
vast
a star system truly was.  Every starship in human service - and the Tadpoles as well, she assumed - could have fitted comfortably into the volume of space occupied by Earth, with plenty of room left over for future construction.  A fleet twice the size of the Royal Navy could be lurking within the interplanetary void and, as long as its crewmen were careful,
Vanguard
wouldn't have a hope in hell of spotting them.  Naval starships travelled at immense speeds, by earthly standards, but it still took hours to cross the interplanetary gulfs.

She sighed inwardly as she skimmed down the list of reports.  A note from the Boatswain that two crewmen had been brawling, probably under the influence of too much shipboard rotgut; they’d be on reduced wages for a week as punishment.  Several other notes from the mess, complaining about crewmen slipping into the compartment for extra meals; she sighed and made a mental note to have a few sharp words with the chefs.  The beancounters might
try
to assign a set daily ration of food to the crew, but it worked about as well as the pre-Troubles attempts to calculate just how much a child should eat.  She much preferred the post-Troubles insistence that children - and crewmen - should eat as much as they wanted, then be encouraged to exercise to burn it off.

Boring
, she thought, crossly.  She glanced at the timer in some irritation.  The midshipmen were supposed to receive their new duties, but that meeting wasn’t scheduled for another two hours.  If the captain was doing his bloody job, he could have taken the conn while she handled the midshipmen ... she shook her head, crossly. 
If I keep reading this crap while I’m on duty, I’ll fall asleep in the command chair.

“Commander,” Lieutenant Charlotte Watson said.  “I think I may have something here.”

Susan rose and stalked over to the sensor console.  She didn't know Lieutenant Watson as well as she would like, but the officer had served on
Vanguard
since before the battleship had been commissioned and there was
nothing
about her sensor suite that Watson didn't know.  Mason had told Susan, back when they’d been discussing the younger officers, that Charlotte had won several prizes for detecting cloaked ships; indeed, reading between the lines, Susan had a suspicion her old friend rather fancied Charlotte.  Given her pale skin, green eyes and short red hair, it was hard to blame him. 

And he outranks her
, Susan thought. 
He can never say it out loud
.

“Show me,” she ordered.  She trusted Mason to be professional.  “What do you have?”

“There’s just a faint energy trace here,” Charlotte said.  She tapped an icon on her display; the trace was far too close to the battleship for Susan’s comfort.  “It’s inching closer, I believe; I’m fairly sure the pattern is too ordered to be natural.”

“Trying to get into firing position,” Susan mused.  She was almost insulted.  The Royal Navy had not only
invented
the tactic, it was also the only power to use it to take out an entire supercarrier.  “Unless, of course, it’s a random spike of background energy?”

“It would be more
random
, Commander,” Charlotte said.  “That’s a ship, not something
natural
.  And it’s in
just
the right position to minimise the danger of being detected by the screen.”

Susan - again - cursed the captain under her breath.  They had been urged
not
to light up any targets until they got too close, if only to deny any watching observers hard data on just what would draw the Royal Navy’s attention, but she knew from her service on
Warspite
that letting a cruiser get too close was asking for trouble.  The captain was the one who should have made the call, not his XO.  And yet, she was the one on the spot.

She studied the display for a long moment, thinking fast.  Assuming the trace was a cruiser with a hull-mounted plasma cannon, like
Warspite
, she was almost within firing range.  And, even if it
was
just a drill, letting her within firing range would count as a loss.  She could blow a
Warspite
out of space with ease, but
Warspite
-class ships were cheaper than battleships. 
Vanguard
might survive the hit, yet she’d definitely need a repair yard ...

And if the Yanks have somehow extended the range of the plasma cannon, she might already be taking aim
, she thought. 
We’d lose without ever knowing what we were playing
.

“Light her up,” she ordered, reluctantly.  It was highly unlikely that the American starship would actually open fire - they might pick up hints she was charging her cannon - but Susan didn't know for sure when the mystery ship would enter firing range.  “And stand by point defence.”

Mason looked up, sharply.  Susan understood his surprise.  The Americans were unlikely to open fire, true, but accidents happened.  Better to be safe than sorry.

“Illuminating target ... now,” Charlotte said.  There was a pause.  “Gotcha!”

Susan smiled as the trace became an icon on the display.  “What do we have?”

“American vessel ... reads out as a modified
Galveston
-class light cruiser,” Charlotte said.  It was easy to hear the gloating tone in her voice.  “Originally, a missile-armed ship, but judging from her emissions she’s probably been refitted to carry a plasma cannon.  They didn't build her straight from the keel up.”

“Probably saw her as a temporary expedient,” Mason commented.  “We were nailing armour plate to fleet carriers after New Russia.”

“It didn’t do much good,” Susan recalled.  “We lost two more carriers during the Battle of Earth.”

“At least they put up a better fight,” Mason said.  “It would have been a great deal worse if the Tadpoles had arrived on the heels of their victory at New Russia.”

“Picking up an IFF,” Parkinson said.  “She’s USS
Truxtun
.”

Susan frowned.  “What’s a Truxtun?”

Mason grinned.  “Named for Commodore Thomas Truxtun,” he said.  “Fought in the quasi-war with France, if I recall correctly.  One of his namesakes helped provide missile defence to Britain and France during the latter stages of the Age of Unrest, when they were launching cruise missiles over the Mediterranean.  My grandfather served in the Royal Navy during that time and used to tell me a great many stories.”

“You
would
know that,” Susan said.  She cleared her throat.  “Communications, inform
Truxtun
that we caught her, fair and square, and that her senior crew are welcome to dinner sometime during the war games.”

“Aye, Commander,” Parkinson said.

Susan allowed herself a tight smile.  The test - she knew it had been a test - had been passed with flying colours.  Unless, of course,
Truxtun
had a secret weapon up her sleeve ... she smiled at the thought, then shrugged.  The remainder of the cruise to the planet would probably be quite peaceful.

“Mr. Mason, you have the bridge,” she said, when the time came to meet with the midshipmen.  “Alert me at once if anything changes.”

“Aye, Commander,” Mason said.  “I have the bridge.”

Susan nodded, then rose and hurried through the hatch.  The two midshipmen were already waiting outside her office, five minutes too early.  They'd picked up that habit at the academy, she knew; she’d been the same, back when
she’d
graduated.  Better to be early and look eager than late and look slapdash.  Both midshipmen looked tired, sadly; she recalled that from her own experience too.  They’d be spending half their time training and the other half learning from the older midshipmen.  Sleep was an optional extra.