It seemed remarkably informal to James, but he realised – as the officers sat down and reached for their mugs  - that they shared a camaraderie that bound them together, no matter how poor their grasp of naval discipline seemed to be.  Smith had forged a good team, he suspected, although they had never been tested in the fire.  But then, very few officers had any experience with interstellar combat.  A great many officers and men were going to be tested soon.

“There have been developments,” Smith said, quietly.  He briefly ran through what the Admiral had told them, ending with the statement that Ark Royal was going to return to active service.  “We have a month – perhaps less – to ready ourselves for combat.”

“Aliens,” Anderson repeated.  “Not another race of Alien Space Bats, I hope?”

James had to smile.  The Alien Space Bats had been a hoax, perpetrated by bored asteroid miners years ago, back when humanity hadn't yet left the Sol System.  By the time the miners had finally confessed to the hoax, countless academics had been taken in and wasted thousands of hours trying to make contact with the enigmatic aliens.  The affair had dented so many otherwise reputable careers that many scientists had refused to believe it when spacers had reported discovering non-intelligent life forms on several extra-solar worlds.

“There have been deaths,” Smith said.  “And it isn't just us.  Every spacefaring power is bringing its military to full alert.”

There was a long pause as they contemplated the end of peace.  James knew that MI6 knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other human interstellar powers ... but they knew nothing about the enigmatic alien threat.  Unless he’d been right, he told himself, and enough people had known to start preparing the human race for contact.  And yet ... surely the secret would have leaked out by now.  Humanity’s governments were very poor at keeping secrets.

“We should have our new crewmen assigned to us within the week,” Smith said, before anyone could start discussing the potential nature of the threat.  “Once we do, I want to move ahead with a full rejuvenation of the ship.”  He looked over at Anderson.  “We’ll go with Option Alpha, I think, and concentrate on our war-fighting capabilities first.”

“Understood,” Anderson said, gruffly.  “We will need to clear the launch bays before we can start taking on new fighters.”

“It may be a while before we get them,” Smith said.  “They’ll all have to be removed from storage and checked out before they’re sent to us.”

James blinked in surprise.  The carrier had no fighters?

“They might send us the older models,” Farley suggested.  “I don’t think that many of the newer carriers could handle them.”