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Back Ark Royal
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover Blurb
  2. Contents
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty

His mind worked frantically, searching for a solution.  There was no way they could break contact and hide, not with the aliens close enough to track them even if they shut down all systems and pretended to be a hole in space.  The aliens would have a rough idea of where they were, allowing them to sweep space until they stumbled over the lurking carrier.  And that assumed they managed to break contact for a few seconds in the first place.  Nor could the other tramlines be reached ...

He pulled up the in-system display and contemplated it.  New Russia had five human-usable tramlines, three of which led to other human settlements.  The aliens would have blockaded them by now, placing smaller forces in position to intercept anything that came through the tramlines – or Ark Royal, if she attempted to make it out.  One more – the one he had intended to use – was also thoroughly blockaded, but the other ...?  He looked down at the reports from the drones and frowned.  They might just be able to make it.

It could be a trap, he knew.  Maybe it led to a red giant, utterly useless to anyone save astronomers who wanted to study, but it was still odd for the aliens to leave it uncovered.  But it did make a certain kind of sense.  The aliens didn't have unlimited numbers of ships, so they covered the most important targets, assuming that Tramline Five wouldn't be used by a human counterattack.  They might well be right, Ted considered.  Tramline Five led away from the core of human space and Earth.  At the very least, Ark Royal was committing herself and her fleet to several months away from human contact.

“Set course for Tramline Five,” he ordered.  “Maximum speed.”

He gritted his teeth.  On the display, the alien starfighters were swooping back for another engagement.  They’d already stripped Ark Royal of a handful of point defence weapons; now, they were taking advantage of the carrier’s blind spots to get closer to the hull and take out other targets.  His own starfighters were chasing them down, at the risk of being accidentally picked off themselves by the carrier’s point defence.  If the battering continued, the aliens would eventually render the carrier completely defenceless.

“Target the alien carriers with missiles,” he ordered, “then launch decoys.  Confuse them as long as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Farley said.