The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

“But James was looking in the direction of first hit.”

Jacka cast her eyes towards the section of the sickbay where curtains had been pulled and the lights turned down low.

“Afterwards, he said he couldn’t see,” she added in an anguished voice.

“His helmet visor probably over polarised and locked. Let’s not panic. Let’s wait until the Doctor is done, then if we have to panic, well, we’ll panic with precision.”

“Lieutenant Commander Shermer?” said a rating from the hatch.

“Yes?”

“You’re wanted in the briefing room.”

“Alright,” she replied, before patting Jacka on the arm. “I’ll be down again as soon as I can. Try to get some rest.”

Dati was waiting for her.

“Where were you?” he demanded, but for once without any real anger.

“Sickbay, sir.”

“And?”

“Lieutenant Jacka is pretty shaken, but will likely be okay. Her weapons controller is probably permanently blinded though,” Alanna replied tiredly, as it all just seemed to catch up with her.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Dati grunted. “Intelligence is still compiling but at a rough count, we took down maybe thirty odd fighters, a couple of escorts and damaged a cruiser. They shot down most of our anti-ship missiles.”

“Not a bad start.”

Dati sat down beside her.

“This was our big strike and I don’t think we hit anything the Nameless gave a rat’s ass about.” Dati shook his head. “Each member of the Squadron is the product of years of training, yet here we are on day one and four of them are dead and one might as well be for all the use he’ll be to us. When I think what the old
Dauntless
did with obsolete fighters.”

“I was there sir,” Alanna replied.

Dati looked at her sharply. Then, realising who he was talking to, he turned away.

“More than half of us didn’t come back and that was when the Nameless didn’t have fighters or know how to fight them,” Alanna reminded him.

“Well they do now. They activated their FTL jammers a short while ago. The last transmission we got from Earth was that Nameless support ships had been observed jumping in and delivering new fighters. Next time, we’ll have to go in the under strength until Earth can get replacements to us.”

“Lieutenant Shermer. I’m ready for you now.”

It was the intelligence officer. As Alanna got up to follow him to the hatch, Dati called after her.

“Good work, Lieutenant, you did well with your flight. Pity it didn’t amount to anything.”

Chapter Seven

Tightening of the Noose

25th December 2067 

Crowe instinctively ducked under the hatchway as he made his way up to the bridge and walked into the paper streamer that was unexpectedly hanging in the way. Made from cut-up paper manuals, it wasn’t the most colourful of decorations, while the next one manufactured from lengths of platted coloured wires was even less festive. But for the moment they added some much needed cheer to the grey confines of the crew quarters, even if engineering would in due course have to recover and return them to stores.

“Whoops, sorry sir,” a petty officer apologised as Crowe attempted to disentangle himself without ripping the streamer. “I’ll tighten that up a bit.”

“And Merry Christmas, sir,” he added, as he lifted it out of Crowe’s way.

“And you
PO? Have you eaten yet?” Crowe asked.

“No sir,” the petty officer said with a shake of his head. “Looking forward to my first ever Christmas dinner.”

“Well don’t let me hold you, the Cook has done well.”

“Thank you, sir,”

The petty officer was a native of the Indian sub-continent and, if Crowe remembered his file correctly, it listed him as a Hindu. By its nature the fleet had always been a multinational and multicultural organisation. In the early days that had been something of a challenge, but at the same time, this aspect offered some significant advantages in terms of the day-to-day operations. With most ships having at least a sizeable minority of non-Christians, it was possible to give most of Christmas Day off to those who were. In turn, the important days of other religious groups and cultures could be given their days with little difficulty.

On board
Deimos
this Christmas was different, with a palpable desire by the crew to celebrate something – anything. The ship’s Christian contingent had extended the season’s greetings and invited the rest of the crew to Christmas dinner. Even if quite a few of them were a bit vague as to what was involved, there had been few refusals and the crew had thrown themselves into decorating the ship with whatever they could lay their hands on. Somehow, the ship’s purser had managed to get hold of some real turkey meat before they left.  Despite the fact, because there were so many mouths to feed, no one would get more than a taste of the big bird, the day had definitely lightened the mood.

God knows they needed it. The arrival of the Nameless fleet dropping into the system had been a hard blow. Watching the fighters and strike boats throw themselves into the fight, only to recoil as their enemy gave as good as they got, was harder still. Crowe still considered himself to be at heart an explorer rather than a fighting officer, but still, not to steer towards the metaphorical sound of gunfire felt like a betrayal. Stepping onto the bridge, Crowe crossed from a world of determined festivity into one of demanding professionalism. Mostly. Someone seemed to have stuck a paper star above the main holo. Commander Bhudraja was sitting in the command chair and rose as soon as he noticed Crowe. The duty watch were all there, leaning over their passive sensor consoles, looking out for anything that might indicate Nameless ships in the vicinity.

There had been a heart-stopping moment a few days earlier when a Nameless scout dropped into real space close to Mars. It actually got inside the orbit of Phobos before jumping away, evidently satisfied nothing of consequence was present. Since then they’d mostly been relying on three discrete passive sensor satellites orbiting the Red Planet, which lasered their readings to a pick-up some distance from the Fast Division’s position on the surface. The dust from their landing was still slowly swirling around with the result that laser connection was occasionally lost for several seconds. But between that and radio transmissions, they stayed well informed.

“Commander, anything to report?”

“No sir,” Bhudraja replied. “We observed the
Illustrious
’s fighter group put in a strike about an hour ago. The Nameless jumped after that and have yet to reappear. So they’re either far enough away that the first light speed emissions haven’t reached us yet or there is a solar body between us and them.”

“How many fighters?”

“Sensors think about a dozen,” Bhudraja replied. “The
Illustrious
should have eighteen fighters, so if they dispatched a dozen, then that was all they had to send.”

Crowe glanced towards a display showing outside the ship. The floating dust still blotted out almost everything, but it was very slowly settling, allowing Crowe to just about make out the looming dark presence of
Warspite
in the distance. Every day they made a status report via laser to the flagship. Every day they received an automatic acknowledgement and nothing more. Did Admiral Lewis know uncertainty? Did he wonder whether the time for the Fast Division to make its move would ever come or worry whether he would recognise the moment? Impossible to know – the Admiral was as inscrutable as a sphinx.

“Do you think, sir,” Bhudraja asked, “we were right to mark Christmas? There was no Christmas out there.”

“We’re not out there,” Crowe replied. “I know what you’re saying, Commander. We’re celebrating while others are fighting and I did wonder about it. But we’re doing what we have to. Our job is the easy one, right up to the moment it suddenly becomes very, very difficult.”

“Yes, sir. I have a few thoughts on keeping the crew busy; after today.”

“Good. We’ll try to use this as productively as we can. We can’t allow people time to over-think this.”

The two of them stood silent for a while.

“I got something called a Brussels sprout on my plate,” Bhudraja commented.

“They’re a bit of an acquired taste.”

“I don’t think I’ll bother.”

12th January 2068 

Willis had just pulled herself through the engine room hatch when the main alarm went off. As she swung herself around, she heard Guinness mutter something like ‘here we go again.’

“Bridge, report!” Willis snapped into her intercom as she pulled herself back the way she’d come. Behind, she heard the pitch of the generators change as they spun up to full power.

“Captain, an enemy force has just jumped in – ninety ships. Two carriers, five cap ships and twenty cruisers with escorts and scouts,” the duty officer replied.

“Shit,” Willis muttered half to herself. Ahead, the off-duty engineering shifts came pouring down the passageway.

“Make a hole!” Willis shouted as she accelerated towards them. Ratings pulled themselves towards the sides as Willis shot down the middle. At the reactor room bulkhead, she let out a grunt of pain as she clipped the edge of the hatch.

“Captain, should we bring the Number Two Reactor online?”

Orders had come up from the surface for all ships to minimise fuel expenditure.
Black Prince
could run, even fight, on one reactor, but it left her dangerously underpowered and exposed to damage or equipment failure. But bringing a cold reactor online was a twenty-minute, fuel intensive process.

“Bring it online,” she confirmed.

“Yes, Captain.”

By the time she reached the bridge, the battle station’s crew had already arrived and changed into their survival suits. On the status board, sections were rapidly turning green as they reported in as ready for action. Willis tossed her jacket into one corner as she pulled on her own suit.

“Alright, Guns,” she said to the duty officer, “I’ve got this.”

He nodded before heading for the hatch and his own station, nearly colliding at the hatch with Lieutenant Commander Chuichi.

The Commander had his suit on but helmet under his arm.

“They’re not even trying are they,” he said nodding towards the main holo.

“No, they aren’t,” Willis replied, as she sealed up her suit. “Bastards!”

“Bridge, Coms. Orders coming in from Squadron Command.”

“My screen,” she replied.

There was nothing unexpected in the orders from
Saladin
. Positioned on the right flank of the fleet, they were to sweep forward. There were gaps in the formation that would allow Planetary Defence’s forts to fire through in support. A faint chime came across the intercom command channel as the last section reported it was ready for action.

“Decompress all sections,” Willis ordered before turning to Chuichi, “You’d better head aft, Commander.”

“Yes, Captain,” he replied, before pulling himself to the hatch, back towards his post in Damage Control. There was no haste in his movements. There didn’t need to be, he could predict just as easily as anyone else in the fleet how the next couple of hours would go.

“Helm, bring us to heading one zero three dash zero eight seven and bring engines to forty percent.”

The engines fired and Willis felt herself being pushed back into her seat as
Black Prince
and the rest of the fleet started to climb up and out of orbit. Ahead, Planetary Defence fighter squadrons led the way, accelerating away from the more sluggish starships.

“Bridge, Sensors. Contact separation, we have incoming.”

On the main holo Willis saw a mass of new contacts appear as the Nameless ships launched a wave of large missiles down into Earth’s gravity well.
Black Prince
’s computer started to work out whether any were specifically aimed at them. Positioned as they were on the extreme right flank of the combined fleet, they probably weren’t, but assumptions made for corpses. A mass of lines appeared on the screen as the computer extrapolated the course of each missile and established that most were aimed at the centre of the fleet.

“Bridge, Fire Control. Prepare for Fire Plan Baker,” she ordered.

As the approaching missiles crossed through the half light second mark, some began to disappear. The orbital forts were already scoring a few hits with their big laser cannons, but most of the disappearing missiles weren’t being destroyed. They were big mass driver missiles, firing before they reached flak range, each one sending a metal lump weighing several kilograms indiscriminately barrelling towards Earth. With so much else flying about,
Black Prince
’s radar couldn’t pick them up yet. When the range closed, they would re-acquire and then try to knock a few off course with plasma cannon fire, while the ships in the centre manoeuvred to avoid them. The orbital forts would have to deal with whatever got through. A few made it pass both the fleet and Planetary Defence, but most struck the atmosphere at the wrong angle to make entry. They either burned up or more likely skipped off Earth’s atmosphere. The only one that made it down plunged into the mid North Atlantic, but even that caused flooding of the Western European and Eastern American coasts.

“Contacts entering firing range.”

“Flak guns commence firing.”

In their dorsal and ventral mounts, the two flak guns started to track and fire, eliminating those missiles that entered
Black Prince
’s defensive zone. Even as the first wave of missiles died, the Nameless launched a second, which went the same way as the first, as did the third. They began to retreat slowly away, staying well under the maximum velocity at they could jump. As the escorts exhausted their supply of cap ship missiles, the weight of successive salvos diminished. The Nameless fighters that had deployed, began to fall back and land on their carriers and then with five minutes to go before the human fighters reached effective missile range, the enemy ships began to jump away.

On her bridge Willis went through the motions, giving the orders that needed to be given for
Black Prince
to metaphorically march to the top of the hill, then march down again. An hour and a half after the first jump in,
Black Prince
was back in position, with only diminished fuel and ammunition to show for it. 

I could have done the whole damn thing from my bunk
, Willis thought to herself when she finally made it off the bridge. Next time maybe she would, she thought only half in jest. Nostalgia was a terrible thing, but she was starting to miss old
Hood
and more particularly, Dryad Station. She’d been in over her head and stared defeat in the face, but at least she’d been able to make some kind of running. Here she was just one more cog in a giant machine that wasn’t achieving very much. It wasn’t anything anyone could be blamed for, but that didn’t make her feel any less useless. It had been the same for nearly the last three weeks. Every two or three days a sizeable chunk of the Nameless fleet would jump in and put in what amounted to a bombardment. No ships had been lost, but every time the fleet had to react, it had consumed fuel they couldn’t replace. Guinness was standing at the door of her cabin. For a moment Willis wondered why he was there, before remembering that she had wanted to talk to him before the bombardment.

“You have those figures?”

“Yes, Skipper,” he replied offering a pad.

“Twelve percent?” Willis said with dismay as she scanned the list.

“Sorry, Skipper,” Guinness replied, “but yeah, each one of these little jaunts costs us about twelve percent of our fuel.”