The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (29 page)

As one, the eight strike boats belched out the rest of their missiles, then turned their formation to make their escape. As the missiles approached, the alien escorts began to fire their own, targeting the approaching projectiles. Only one human missile got through, grazing one of the escorts. As the Nameless continued to accelerate, the strike boats attempted to reverse course. With the range dropping fast, missiles started arcing out from the Nameless ships and now it was the humans’ turn to defend. The gunboats at the rear of the formation blazed away at the approaching missiles and deployed chaff. The gunboats and strike boats were too small to target precisely with cap ship missiles, but it hardly mattered, the smaller dual purpose weapons were equal to the task. One of them found its way through and a strike boat took a direct hit. Its engineering section was blown apart, leaving the gutted remains of the command deck to coast forward.

A light minute away, the scout ship quietly jumped away.

“Sensors, Bridge. The scout ship is back.”

“Captain,” Yoro said, “we’re getting an information download from the scout.”

“My screen please,” Willis ordered.

The Nameless were in hot pursuit, being drawn away from the large station and towards the Red Line. They’d known almost immediately when the attack had gone in after detecting a sudden flurry of Nameless FTL transmissions.

“Captain, signal from flag: Proceed as instructed.”

“Bridge, Navigation, start spin up for jump. All hands prepare for high acceleration.”

Willis looked around at Kerr. The marine officer was standing in his combat gear, his suit and armour making him substantially bulkier than everyone else on the bridge. The task group’s entire marine complement, a whole company, was now squeezed aboard
Spectre
and the chief engineer was muttering darkly about over taxing the life support systems.

“Ready, Major?” she asked.

“Raring to go,” came his sardonic reply.

If Willis was any judge, Kerr was a conflicted man. The marines had suffered a higher proportion of casualties than any other branch of the fleet so they were keen for payback but just as eager to avoid getting killed doing it. From astern came the faint rumble of the engines as
Spectre
started to slide round the large asteroid they’d been using to break the line of sight to the Nameless. Forty kilometres off to Port, the
De Gaulle
also accelerated on a slightly different course. Along with their support ships,
Pankhurst
waited out beyond the edge of the system.

“Coms, send to
De Gaulle
: Good hunting.”

“They’ve signalled back, Captain: You too.”

Spectre
cleared the asteroid. Eight light minutes ahead was the planet and the Nameless station.

“Go full burn on engines,” she ordered.

The rumble from astern became a throaty roar. Willis felt herself being pushed back hard into her chair. Kerr grunted as he started to slide before his safety line brought him to a halt.

“Navigation, Bridge, we are now at safe jump speed.”

Willis glanced at
De Gaulle
’s icon. The heavier ship had a shallower acceleration curve. She was still two minutes away from the velocity at which she could jump without the portal closing on her stern. That was close enough. Without conscious thought, Willis tightened her seat restrains.

“All hands brace for jump. Helm, execute jump!”

Across such a relatively short distance, the time in jump space was only a few seconds before
Spectre
jolted back into real space. The main holo blanked out and then started to fill up again as the first radar returns began to come in. Off to port was the planet, the station behind it, beyond it the Nameless ships and beyond them the strike boat. Willis winced as she counted only seven human ships.

“Helm, come to two, nine, three dash zero, zero, four
– engines full burn.”

On the far side of the mass shadow, the three Nameless warships had detected
Spectre
as she turned in towards the planet and were breaking off their pursuit. They were inside the Red Line but beyond the Blue. Once they’d slowed enough to jump, the Nameless ships could cross the distance between them in seconds.
Spectre
’s course couldn’t have made her objective more obvious. Three to one, especially at close range, would be a fatal encounter. Had they calculated accurately enough or had they tried to pull off too ambitious a plan with too little planning? On the holo the strike boat formation opened and scattered, each on its own course, just as
De Gaulle
jumped in right on the Red Line.

“Yes!” Willis hissed.

The Nameless ships were caught facing the wrong way, with little velocity and within gun range of the Red Line. The
De Gaulle
’s first salvo blew the Nameless cruiser’s engines apart. As it tumbled away in a crippled state, Pincuc’s ship quickly shifted target to the first of the escorts.

“That’s the first milestone, Major,” she said over her shoulder.

Ahead the Nameless station orbited into view. As the fastest ship in the task group,
Spectre
was the one that could close the range most quickly. They still didn’t know what, if anything, the station was armed with. If it turned out they were charging a Star Fort, then things could be about to get excessively interesting.

“Bridge, Coms, the target is transmitting again on FTL frequency.”

“Understood. Inform me if we hear any replies.”

Twenty minutes passed as
Spectre
thundered in and the Nameless station continued to squawk with its FTL transmitter. No missiles arched out towards
Spectre
, while, on the other side of the mass shadow,
De Gaulle
accelerated in past the wreckage of her victims. On the bridge holo, the green circle indicating the range of
Spectre
’s guns got closer and finally overlapped with the station.

“Helm, cut engines. Fire Control, engage the target,” Willis ordered.

As the engines stopped, the tremble she could feel in the deck disappeared.
Spectre
continued to coast along but now as a perfectly steady gun platform. The cruiser’s two turrets came slowly to bear as the gunner made fine adjustments. Then the first plasma bolt belched out. A hundred thousand kilometres down range, the bolt missed the station’s connecting structure by only a dozen metres, perhaps prompting it alien inhabitants to realise that mere destruction was not the invaders’ objective. By then the gunner had already corrected his aim. The second shot missed by less than two metres, while the third slammed in, all but severing the connection. The FTL transmissions from the station ceased in mid-flow.

“Well that’s shut them up,” Willis muttered.

She signalled to Helm and the engines once again began to rumble.

“How long until we’re alongside?” Kerr asked.

Willis glanced towards navigation.

“Seventeen minutes to the turnover, Major, plus another thirty-five minutes of braking to bring us to a relative halt alongside the station.”

A lot of time for the occupants of the now crippled station to react.
Spectre
could pull a braking manoeuvre and keep her bows and guns facing the enemy, but she couldn’t brake as hard that way. For best performance she needed to about face, which would leave the cruiser attempting to see through her own engine plume. They could, and would, deploy sensor drones to cover the blind spot, but if the Nameless retained or managed to cobble together any kind of anti-ship capability, then
Spectre
would be a sitting duck.

“I’ll move aft to join my men at the turnover,” Kerr replied.

Another forty minutes passed, during which the station remained inert. As the engines overcame the acceleration they’d built up, the rate at which they were closing became increasingly slow. That had always been the plan
– to come to a halt within a hundred metres of the station. Unless they matched velocities perfectly, the marines would be incapable of spacewalking the last part without becoming small organic projectiles. With the most critical part of the attack now imminent Willis remained perfectly silent, keeping a close eye on the holo for any activity on the station. If it gave any sign of attack, she might have only seconds in which to swing
Spectre
around in defence. As they crossed through the hundred-kilometre mark, the cruiser’s point defence guns stabbed out, knocking away aerials and sensor domes, to further blind and render the target impotent.

With a final burst of her engines,
Spectre
slotted into a parallel orbit only ninety metres away from the station. Through one of the internal cameras, Willis could see the marines lined up at the main airlock. With the ship decompressed, both airlock hatches were open and she could see her chief petty officer leaning out with a tether gun in his hands. As
Spectre
came to a relative halt, he fired, propelling a rocket-assisted line. Normally it would have been tipped with a magnetic grapple, but on this occasion it was fitted with a hull-piercing head bodged together in
Pankhurst
’s machine shop.

A small puff of venting gas confirmed that the shot was good and had bitten into the hull. Inside, the head would be releasing sealant foam, which would stop the air loss and make it impossible to quickly knock out the head.

The Chief swung out of the lock and hung onto the outside of the hull as the marine breaching team snapped onto the line and pulled themselves hand over hand. The success of the mission was now out of her hands and Willis could only wait and watch. If the Nameless sent troops outside to engage the marines, then
Spectre
would offer support, but once the marines got in they’d be on their own.

Within twenty seconds the marines were on the hull. A few clamped their boots on and formed a perimeter while the rest started to stick thin hoops of explosives onto sections of the hull identified as likely areas to blast inwards. With the explosives in place, they quickly clamped on temporary airlocks. The hatches were left open to allow the explosive shockwave to travel outwards. The sergeant in charge gave a quick thumb’s up back to
Spectre
. Across the command channel, Willis could hear Kerr shouting just as the blasting charges fired. 

“First team, go, go, GO!” he roared.

Across the hull there were five circular flashes. Then the pressure behind blew five metal discs of hull plating outwards and the airlocks slammed shut. The first of the breaching teams reached the locks and started to work their way through, one at a time. Willis could see confusion at one of the locks and marines floundering there. But at the other four there were rhythmic flashes of escaping gas as each lock dumped atmosphere each time the outer hatch opened for the next marine. Across the radio link Willis started to hear the sound of combat within.

___________________________

De Gaulle
and
Spectre
lay on either side of the station. The surviving strike boats had rearmed, returned and were now patrolling at the edge of the mass shadow. Four hours after the first marines had stormed aboard, the last of the fighting was petering out. There were still a few pockets of resistance where the marines couldn’t get in, but the defenders couldn’t get out.

Beyond that the situation was far from clear.

“Lieutenant Kinberg here, Admiral,” a marine reported from the temporary command post they had established close to one of the airlocks.

“I’m not sure how many people we’ve lost
– the Major and most of his command section was taken out. At a guess, I reckon we’ve lost about a third of our fighting strength in dead or wounded.”

Nisman’s expression tightened. That was a lot of marines.

“Who’s in charge over there now, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Right now, sir, I think that would be me,” Kinberg replied. “I’m pretty sure I’m now the only officer still standing. The enemy has retreated towards the core of the station. There isn’t really room to bring everyone to bear on them so I have teams sweeping the rest of the station, but it’s a bloody maze over here.”

“Thank you Lieutenant,” Nisman replied. “And well done. I’ll be in touch shortly.”

“Sir.”

Kinberg disappeared from the screen.

That left Willis, the Admiral and Captain Pincuc still on the link-up. They’d picked up distant Nameless FTL transmissions an hour earlier. They were short and identical. They couldn’t read them of course, but the pattern suggested some kind of status request.

“So, do your respective coms sections have any thoughts on how far off those transmissions came from?” Nisman asked, “Or more importantly, how long before the ship that sent them could get here?”

“Going by our records of past incidents and signal strength, twenty-four to thirty-six hours,” Willis replied. “And that’s on the optimistic side.”