Christopher Nuttall - The Nelson Touch

Winchester snorted “Aren’t you glad you didn’t manage to take Ark Royal from Captain Smith?”

James flushed, again. His uncle was fond of allowing him to make mistakes — and then pointing them out, afterwards. Trying to unseat Captain Smith had been a mistake, one mitigated only by the fact he’d failed. If he had commanded the carrier during the first battles, James suspected, the results would have been far less favourable to the human race. They might have come alarmingly close to losing the war.

“Yes,” he said, tightly.

“Good,” Winchester said. “You really need to learn from your mistakes, Captain .”

“Yes, sir,” James said.

The waitress returned, carrying two plates of food. James averted his eyes as she bent over to place them on the table, then curtseyed and retreated back through the side door. Uncle Winchester chuckled, then motioned for James to start eating. His own dinner, a Lancashire Hot Pot, steamed as he cut his way inside and started to pull out the meat. James smiled, remembering formal dinners at the manor house. Uncle Winchester was rarely welcome because he was an eccentric eater, yet too aristocratic to be told off by James’s mother.

“Which leads to another point,” Uncle Winchester said, between bites. “I want you to continue your observation of Admiral Smith.”

James felt cold ice congeal around his heart. The Admiralty had worried about leaving Ark Royal in Captain Smith’s hands, knowing him to be a drunkard. James had been given orders to relieve the Captain of command if he believed it to be necessary, something that could easily have killed his career as well as the career of the commanding officer he’d betrayed. Even if his career survived — and he knew that his actions might have been judged to be mutiny by a court martial — he would never have been trusted again by his fellow officers. And, in truth, he might have ignored his orders.

But if I’d relieved the Captain of command , he thought, we would never have escaped the trap .

James knew, without false modesty, that he’d done very well at the Academy. And yet he would never have thought of trying to board and storm an alien starship. Instead, he would probably have fought to the bitter end, knowing that it would be futile. Captain Smith had thought of a way out, then implemented it and carried the plan through to the end. He thoroughly deserved his promotion.

“No,” he said, flatly.

Winchester looked up at him, surprised. “No?”

“No, sir,” James said. He braced himself, then carried on. “There is no evidence that the Captain — the Admiral — has returned to drink. He has more than proved himself a good commanding officer, as I believe the Old Lady’s war record indicates. I don’t think he deserves to have his Flag Captain spying on him.”

He paused, remembering Commander Williams. Had she been sent to spy on James ? A year ago, he would have sneered at the thought. The Royal Navy didn’t betray its own. And yet, now, he knew it was a possibility. Commander Williams had practically been forced on him by the Admiralty.

“I do not think that you’re the one who should be making those judgements,” Uncle Winchester said. James blinked, then remembered that his Uncle was still talking about him spying on Admiral Smith. “The Admiralty is still very concerned.”

James glowered down at his steak, stabbing it as if the piece of meat had done him a personal injury. “The Admiralty saw fit to give him command of a multinational task force composed of six full-sized carriers,” he snapped. “If they had concerns, they could have promoted him up into a groundside office where he wouldn’t have had to do more than make ceremonial appearances and review parades.”

“Politics,” Winchester observed, lightly. “Admiral Smith has earned a large number of supporters who don’t, I’m afraid, seem to know anything about his drinking habits.”

James had his doubts. The Royal Navy had worked closely with both the French and Americans in the past, sharing personnel files with both powers. Even if they hadn’t, James knew for a fact that the Royal Navy kept files on foreign officers who might be of interest and he rather assumed that the other interstellar powers did the same. On the other hand, Admiral Smith hadn’t been remotely important until Ark Royal had suddenly become the last best hope of humanity. It was quite possible that foreign powers knew next to nothing about him.

He shook his head. “I’m sure the media will fill in the gaps,” he said, although he had his doubts about that too. The media representations of the Battle of New Russia had left him wondering if he’d been there at all, even though he knew perfectly well that he’d been in the CIC during the fighting. “Or their spy services, for that matter.”

“No doubt,” Winchester said. “But we would really prefer it if you kept an eye on the Admiral for us.”

James met his eyes. “No,” he said, again. “I do not believe it is justified, sir.”

His uncle gave him the long hard look that, as a child, had been a warning that there was punishment coming if he didn’t straighten up and fly right. James swallowed, reminded himself that he was an adult, and refused to lower his eyes. As intimidating as his uncle could be, James was hardly a child any longer and he refused to further betray a commanding officer he had come to respect.

“You could be wrong,” Winchester said. “Can we afford to trust your judgement?”

“Yes,” James said.

“You tried to take command of a starship you were unprepared to command,” his uncle reminded him. “Does that indicate your judgement is flawless?”

James felt his temper flare. “I believe you were caught in the haystacks with a girl barely a third of your age,” he snapped. It had been quite the scandal at the time, although as Uncle Winchester had shown no hint of remorse or even concern it had faded quickly. “Does that indicate your judgement is flawless?”

His uncle smiled. “Point taken,” he said. “I will respect your judgement.”

He leaned forward. “But we cannot afford to lose the alliance,” he added. “Please, keep an eye on things.”

James met his eyes. “Did you assign Commander Williams to keep an eye on me?”

“No,” Winchester said. “I believe Thomas” — the First Space Lord — “wanted to make sure that there were other commanding officers for Ark Royal and her forthcoming sisters waiting in the wings. You’ll probably have quite a few other officers passing through your hands in the coming months, James. Try to make sure they know what they’re doing.”

He paused. “She is pretty and smart,” he added. “You could do worse.”

James glowered at him. “She’s not a woman, damn it,” he snapped. “She’s my XO.”

“How true,” Winchester agreed. “But I was serious about urging you to consider marriage.”

“Oh,” James said.

His uncle switched subjects suddenly, in the manner that had always irked James’s mother whenever he came to tea. “I believe you have been told about your… unexpected crewmember?”

“You mean the Prince,” James said, in no mood for games. He took a bite of his steak, then scowled at his uncle. “We were told today. I would have preferred more warning.”

“So would we,” Winchester said. “The whole affair is quite ill-timed, particularly with the legal issues over the succession.”

James sighed. In 2013, the succession laws had been rewritten to state that the firstborn child, male or female, would inherit the throne. But in 2030, during the troubles, the laws had been dismissed as the work of senseless liberals by the sitting Prime Minister and returned to the pre-2013 state, along with many others. James remembered history lessons where historians debated if the Prime Minister had been right or if he’d thrown out the baby along with the bathwater. It was hard to argue against the claim that England’s Queens, on the whole, had done better than England’s Kings. But reaction had been the order of the day back during the troubles. Even now, historians still had problems coming to terms with everything that had happened back then.