He didn't say anything else until they were seated in the briefing compartment with mugs of hot tea in front of them.  There was no hard data on just what the enemy could do, he knew, so they’d assumed that they would be facing modern starfighters armed with the latest in drives, weapons and stealth gear.  The Spitfires weren't that outdated – the mechanics had been able to refit them with modern sensors – but they had their limitations.  And Ark Royal’s limited sensor arrays didn't help.

“So,” he said, looking around the compartment.  “We lost the carrier.  I think that counts as a disaster.”

No one disagreed.  Starfighters couldn't hope to return home without a carrier, not with their very limited life support.  In theory, they could be picked up by other starships, but no one had ever tried to recover more than a handful of starfighters at once.  Kurt made a mental note to recommend that such operations be practiced as soon as possible, although he suspected that the Royal Navy had other problems.  Two carriers had been added to the unified defence fleet and dispatched outwards to New Russia, while most of the remainder had been assigned to Earth or Britannia.  It would be months before they were ready to start experimenting with new procedures.

“The Captain will not be pleased, I imagine,” he continued.  “What did we do wrong?”

“Let them get past us,” Rose said, sourly.  She’d come very close to being taken out too.  “We need another flight of starfighters closer to the carrier.”

“And what would happen,” another pilot asked, “if the point defence mistakes those craft for enemy fighters?”

“They end up dead,” Rose pointed out, snidely.  “Look; we either run the risk of letting them get within missile range of the carrier or we run the risk of letting our point defence take pot-shots at us.”

Kurt snorted.  He knew the ideal answer from exercises, but exercises always left out the real danger.  The Royal Navy’s planners fought constant battles with the bureaucrats and well-meaning politicians over the use of live weapons in exercises, even though such exercises were always more informative than simulated danger.  But then, losing a pilot in an exercise would be politically dangerous.  It would be used against the Navy by the politicians.

“We will have to split our forces,” he said, raising his voice.  Debates were often interesting and it was important that the pilots learned to speak their minds, but in the end the final responsibility stopped with Kurt himself.  Somehow, he doubted the other pilots would be allowed to join him when he faced a court martial if things went wrong.  “It will mean additional risk, true, but I see no alternative.”

He sighed.  “We’ll run another set of exercises in two hours,” he added.  “Go get some sleep, then assemble back here for pre-flight briefing.  Any questions?”