The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) (2 page)

Icro did not move.

“
There is one final matter Speaker, one to which I will need if not an immediate answer, then one very soon. What course of action should our Area Commandants or Ship Seniors take, when human refugee ships start crossing into our space?
”

Chapter Two

Outlook and Observation

31
st
August 2066

Six months ago there had been serious talk of a downturn in starship construction. A twenty year glut of building seemed to have finally caught up with the industry, as supply started to outstrip demand. Expansion plans were either pared back or abandoned. The stock market analysts confidently predicted that at least a few of the smaller players would either be absorbed or go to the wall.

That was then. Now every last one of Earth
’
s orbital shipyards was a hive activity. Yards that had laid off workers were now frantically trying to hire anyone with experience. Even as workers toiled inside the yards, yet more laboured outside in an effort to expand capacity.

Those yards were now packed with the battered hulls of nearly half the fleet
’
s surviving ships. So urgent was the need for those ships that several partly completed vessels had been towed out of the way to make room for urgent repair work, yet there were still more warships waiting for a space. In one or two yards however there were some ships that were far enough along to be worth completing, even though their purpose would be different from that for which they were originally intended.

Vice Admiral Paul Lewis, Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet stood in the observation lounge of the Isli yard looking out at what would soon be the fleet
’
s three newest warships - provided you stretched the definition of the word
‘
warship
’
to breaking point!

“
Freighter hulls
…
so structural integrity is based in the core rather than the skin, therefore there can be no external mountings capable of holding armour. On top of that they have no meaningful internal subdivision and the machinery is of a standard commercial design that puts emphasis on ease of maintenance rather than high-end performance.
”
Lewis was speaking in a flat voice and the two other men in the room both winced at his tone.
“
Each ship has only a single reactor, with no redundancy in either heat sinks or radiators. Each of the two bigger ships has a main armament of just four single-mounted flak guns, the smaller one has only two and all three have large blind spots both forward and astern.
”
Lewis paused before slowly turning, a careful movement necessitated by the location of the observation lounge outside the shipyard centrifuge, which meant that it was only the small magnets in the heels of the Admiral
’
s boots that kept him in contact with the deck.
“
This is what we
’
re calling warships these days?
”

A tall Englishman in his early sixties with slate grey hair and bushy eyebrows, decades in the cramped confines of starships had given Lewis a slight habitual stoop. Even so he still loomed over the civilian in front of him.

When they had first arrived the yard manager had looked rather pleased with his facility
’
s work. Certainly they
’
d worked hard to complete the necessary design and construction work in less than six weeks. But that didn
’
t change the fact that the fruits of their labours would still only be civilian vessels masquerading as warships. After the Admiral
’
s scathing review the manager now looked as if he would rather be somewhere, indeed anywhere, else. Even the normally dour Lewis was driven to offer some encouragement.

“
I hope that we can continue to expect the same level of commitment and dedication you and your staff have shown with this project.
”

“
You can be assured there will be no let up,
”
the manager replied, perking up.
“
We will be moving the first of these three out within the week and the other two will follow within ten days. Two of your cruisers have been earmarked as our first repair projects
…”
He prattled on as the Admiral turned back to the viewing port.

“
Has headquarters assigned names and designations to these three new juggernauts?
”
Lewis asked as his shuttle dived away from the Isli platform and into Earth
’
s atmosphere. The inspection had been an impromptu one, as much to kill time as anything else.

“
Yes sir,
”
replied Lewis
’
s chief of staff, Captain Tim Sheehan, the only other person in the shuttle
’
s passenger compartment. Sheehan always seemed to be able to hold a vast amount of information in his head, ready to be supplied when required. He really had no business being on active service. A high-speed collision with a bulkhead had cracked his wrist and being in and out of micro-gravity wasn
’
t going to help the healing process. But he had declined the offer of a ground posting.
“
They
’
re to be called
Buffalo
,
Bison
and
Wildebeest
, sir. Headquarters is calling them auxiliary cruisers.
”

The smile that briefly appeared on Lewis
’
s face had nothing to do with humour.

“
Clearly someone at headquarters has too much appreciation of history to call them Armed Merchant Cruisers.
”

“
Sir?
”

“
AMCs. Generally small passenger liners painted grey with a few old guns bolted on. They were used in the big wars of the early twentieth. When they came up against real warships they generally fought very bravely but sank very quickly.
”

“
Those ships could be very useful as ammunition tenders, sir,
”
Sheehan replied.

“
Problem is we
’
re likely going to have to use them as frontline warships for at least six months first. God help the poor beggars we put onto them,
”
Lewis said, shaking his head before turning back to the porthole. Outside flames lapped over the glass as the shuttle started to make re-entry.

His reflection in the glass stared back at him. It disturbed him the way his face looked tired and years older than the last time he looked properly. There were lines, which he didn
’
t recall being there a few weeks previously and his hair seemed to be a slightly paler shade of grey. His sixty-two years had never felt heavier than they did right now.

A little over a year earlier the Battle Fleet ship
Mississippi
, on survey duties had encountered another vessel of unfamiliar design.
Mississippi
had attempted first contact protocol but was attacked. The ensuing clash had been brief and brutal. The human ship survived and the alien
’
s didn
’
t.

In the aftermath of that border clash the fleet sent out further ships to find and assess this nameless race. But for nearly a year that first encounter was the only sign of the Nameless, as the press had dubbed them. That changed on the twenty-third of July when without warning an entire fleet of Nameless warships fell upon Battle Fleet’s frontier base at Baden, home to the Third Fleet.

The Nameless did what humanity
’
s understanding of physics said was impossible. Baden was built onto the side of a giant asteroid to take advantage of an effect known as the mass shadow, a region of space surrounding large spatial bodies in which no ship could enter or exit jump space. The Nameless ships were apparently not so heavily constrained, allowing them to drop into real space already within firing range. Those ships of the Third Fleet that survived did so by fleeing.

The Nameless were still subject to some constraints though. During the course of the retreat one of the survivors from Baden observed how close they could jump in near a planet. Priceless information in the long run but it hadn
’
t been of any immediate help to Lewis as he attempted to stop the Nameless offensive short of Earth.

At Alpha Centauri the Home Fleet succeeded, but the losses had been grievous, with almost every surviving ship damaged to some degree. Which explained Lewis
’
s current status as a commanding officer with almost nothing left to command. Lewis remained lost in thought as the shuttle completed re-entry and inserted into Earth
’
s teeming air traffic.

___________________________

Fleet Admiral Cody Wingate, senior military officer of the fleet, scrolled down through the report on his computer screen. For a year the fleet had tried to analyse the capabilities of the Nameless from the scraps of information brought back by the
Mississippi
. It had all seemed more like an academic exercise than anything else. Now those same analysts were trying to gain strategic insight and develop frontline tactics from information that - despite two major battles - was still little better than scraps. Everything from ships
’
readings to irradiated fragments of wreckage was being examined and classified. While much of this process resulted in duplication, there was always the possibility that something vital might be hidden amidst the mass of data. Computer filters could only do so much.

Wingate hit a key to move the page down. Of course once it was coded, catalogued and written up, the information still had to be drilled into the heads of the men and women who would actually be doing the fighting. Wingate just wished they could provide more details. Words like
assumed
,
estimated
and
thought probable
were appearing far too regularly in the various appraisals and reports.

There was a tap at the office door and Wingate
’
s chief of staff stepped in.

“
Sir, the meeting with the Council is due to start in fifteen minutes,
”
she said firmly.

“
I
’
ll be ready in a moment,
”
Wingate replied barely lifting his eyes from the screen.

“
Respectfully, sir, it is at least a ten minute walk down there,
”
the Captain replied, before adding pointedly,
“
Admirals Lewis and Fengzi have already arrived.
”

“
Alright Anna, you
’
ve made your point. Let
’
s get moving.
”
If for no other reason, he needed to get down there to keep the peace between his two senior field commanders.

The Council Chamber was a specialised room buried several stories below the Fleet Headquarters on Earth. Getting numerous world leaders together as often as the fleet required would be a practical impossibility. Instead, at the centre of the room was a conference table with chairs on one side, and hologram equipment on the other. Seating also lined the walls of the chamber. Usually there were spare chairs around the main table but today every seat was filled, even the extra ones a work party of ratings had brought in. Most of the people present wouldn
’
t be required to speak but they were in attendance just in case they were needed to provide more information. The consequences of the day
’
s meeting would directly affect the direction of the war and in turn, every human being.

Admiral Wingate stared into space as he and the rest the fleet
’
s commanders waited for the Governi
ng Council. To his right, Paul Lewis and Admiral Fengzi, the commander of the Second Fleet, were quietly talking. The two didn
’
t generally get along but on this occasion the conversation, between the firebrand Fengzi and the coldly pragmatic Lewis, was at least staying civil. As Wingate half listened to his two subordinates, he unconsciously rubbed one of his left hand
’
s remaining fingers up and down the faint scar tissue that still marked his face. Numerous operations had dulled the worst of the old burns, but they were still noticeable on his dark skin. Like most of the fleet
’
s senior officers, he was a veteran of the Contact War. The injuries he
’
d sustained in that conflict had threatened to end his career and had certainly limited it as a line officer. As a staff officer however, he had continued to rise, culminating four years previously in his appointment to military head of the fleet. This was something of a mixed blessing because his role was as much political as military, and there was no shortage of politics.