Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch Read Online Free PDF Page A

now, there are differences in our operational protocols.  We can’t afford a communications breakdown in the heat of battle.”
     
    “You’ll have all the time you want,” the Prime Minister said.  “I don’t think I need to tell you, any of you, that this is immensely important.  We cannot afford a defeat.”
     
    James nodded, silently admiring the man’s nerve.  Sending even a small number of carriers to take the offensive risked denuding the defences of Earth.  If the operation failed, or the aliens mounted their own offensive before they realised that Ark Royal was in their rear, it could get very sticky.  He had a feeling that quite a few politicians had argued for an attack on New Russia instead.  But, at best, that would only liberate the planet.  It wouldn't threaten the alien homeworlds.
     
    “We won’t let you down,” Admiral Smith said.  James knew him well enough to tell that he wasn't as confident as he sounded.  Even if everything went according to plan the operation would still be very tricky to pull off successfully.  “Does the operation have a name?”
     
    The First Space Lord smiled.  “Operation Nelson,” he said.  “I thought it was fitting.”
     

Chapter Three
     
    “They look so young ,” Squadron Commander Rose Labara muttered.
     
    Wing Commander Kurt Schneider couldn't disagree as he watched the trainees filing into the hall.  A handful were older, merchant crewmen who had volunteered for service with the Royal Navy, but the remainder looked as though they should still be in school.  He knew, intellectually, that the youngest of them were eighteen years old, yet his mind refused to grasp it.  The boys looked barely old enough to shave, the girls looked as though they should be more interested in dresses and makeup than flying starfighters against the enemies of humanity.
     
    He shook his head, feeling old.  His son was seventeen and planning to join the Royal Navy next year; his daughter was only a couple of years younger.  Kurt himself was old enough to have fathered most of the trainees; he’d steered them through the compressed training sessions, knowing that many of them would be dead before the end of the year.  The Royal Navy had lost a third of its pre-war pilots in the war, including many Kurt had known personally.  There was no reason to believe that it would improve in the years to come.
     
    Oh, they’d learned a great deal about their enemy, he knew.  They knew how the aliens fought, they knew how to counter alien tactics and technology ... and yet there was still a quiet nagging doubt.  The aliens had proven themselves to be cunning and deadly foes.  Kurt suspected their recent inactivity was not through caution, but a desire to make sure they held the advantage once again before they started their advance on Earth.  When they came, and they would, many of the young men and women in front of him would die.
     
    He cast his eyes over the trainees sitting in the front row, the trainees who had scored the highest in simulation flying.  Sonny, a young man with an unerring knack for pulling off impossible shots; David, a merchant crewman who made up in experience what he lacked in polish; Sandra, a young girl with a flair that impressed even Rose ... and Charles Augustus, a young man with a permanent scowl on his face, yet possessing remarkable determination to crash through the course and win his flight wings.  He’d earned them, Kurt conceded, and yet there was something about Augustus’s attitude that bothered him.  Despite being his superior, he still knew almost nothing about the young man.
     
    Rose elbowed him.  “It's time,” she said.  “Go speak to them, sir.”
     
    Kurt nodded and stepped up onto the stage.  Five hundred pairs of eyes peered at him as he cleared his throat, wishing – once again – that he was better at giving speeches.  The trainees didn't know it, but the ceremony they’d earned had been cut short,