Free Ark Royal by Christopher Nuttall Page A

aliens had taken, but he couldn't help feeling that it was very limited.  And, even if humanity had taken out twelve alien carriers in exchange for the human ships, no one knew how big a dent that was in alien capabilities.   They might have a thousand carriers on their way to human space.
     
    Fitzwilliam nudged him.  The First Space Lord had yielded the podium to a tired-looking analyst.  For once, almost every officer seemed to be paying attention, even though the officer was only a lieutenant – and not even a line officer.  But they all needed to know what had happened at New Russia.
     
    “We have only preliminary results,” the analyst said.  “However, they suggest that the aliens are dangerously advanced over us.  In particular, their weapons and drives seem to be vastly superior.”
     
    Ted sat up, feeling cold.  Ark Royal had been the most advanced starship of her time, but she couldn't hope to beat a modern carrier in a long-range engagement.  Even a handful of such carriers would have problems winning against a more advanced foe.  The original warships launched by the Royal Navy would have been rapidly wiped out by the modern ships, no matter how numerous they were.  If the aliens were advanced enough, there was no amount of blood sweat and tears that would make up the difference.
     
    “Alien fighters seem to be roughly equal to ours in terms of drives,” the analyst said.  “However, they posses both stealth systems and advanced energy weapons capable of seriously damaging a starship’s hull.  Our best guess is that they are actually modified plasma cannons, which suggests that the aliens have actually overcome the containment field problems that bedevil human researchers.  An alternative is that the weapons actually induce limited fission in their targets.”
     
    Ted winced.  Humanity’s plasma cannons had a nasty habit of overheating and exploding, which was why they were rarely deployed by the military.  But if the aliens had cracked that problem, somehow, it would give them a decisive advantage.  For one, all of their starfighters would pack the punch of a torpedo-bomber.  They’d have genuine duel-role starfighters.
     
    “They also managed to get much closer to our carriers without being detected than we believed possible,” the analyst added.  “Indeed, our first thought was that the alien starfighters had managed to make an in-system FTL jump.  If we hadn't been so convinced that was impossible, we might not have realised that they merely remained hidden until they were very close to our ships.  We are currently looking for ways to break their stealth systems, but so far we have come up with nothing.
     
    “Worse, it seems likely that they have a better FTL system than ourselves,” he concluded.  He pointed to a starchart, then focused it on the New Russia system.  “Their appearance within the system didn't correspond to any known tramline.  It seems that they jumped from a star we would consider outside normal tramline range.  This suggests that our strategic maps of human space may be badly outdated.”
     
    Ted exchanged a long look with Fitzwilliam as the information sank in.  Normally, the tramlines rarely stretched past five light years.  It still took time to move from system to system ... but if the aliens had access to weaker tramlines, they might well be able to evade the human defences and outmanoeuvre the human starships.  It could give them a potentially decisive advantage.
     
    To add to the other ones they have , he thought, grimly.  They’d been wrong; the aliens hadn't been reluctant to attack further, they’d just waited until humanity had offered them a tempting target.  And then they’d attacked, wiping out a colossal force and shattering humanity’s unity.  The loss of New Russia alone was a serious blow.
     
    “We have prepared recordings of the battle for you,” the First Space Lord said.  “I advise you to watch carefully,