The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (38 page)

“You might as well come with us, Boss,” William said.

She wanted to, she wanted to finally rip off those cursed stripes on her sleeve. But people still needed her and there was still a chance she could get at least some of them out.

It took another four hours to reach Camp Dautsch and Alice was in no doubt she was walking toward a battle. The landscape rocked and echoed to the sound of artillery fire. When they did finally reach the camp, her two escorts were immediately commandeered and ordered towards the sound of distant small arms fire. Alone, Alice continued towards the Colonel’s command post. The camp, orderly when she’d left nearly two weeks ago, was now a shambles. Holes had been torn in the forest canopy with trees either felled completely or severed mid-trunk. Packing cases like the ones she’d recovered lay around in piles, emptied and abandoned.

“Corporal, you’re not dead,” Dautsch observed as she walked into the command post. Only a single marine was in attendance, his arm strapped across his chest in a grubby sling.

“We got twenty-one out of twenty-five cases at the cost of two dead and three walking wounded,” Alice began to report before petering out.

Dautsch smiled bitterly.

“I think as you can gather, things have moved on a bit,” he replied as he gestured her forward.

The map in front of them gave a rough layout of the camp and the surrounding farms. Projecting in from the northwest was a red line that pushed in through the outer farms and up to the camp. Somehow that simple line on the map, through locations she had come to know and associate with people, made it even more real than the sounds of battle.

“It’s a delaying action,” Dautsch said in a tired voice. “That is all we can hope to do. I think that by the way they’re coming straight at us rather than attempting to work around our flanks, means they don’t know how widely spread we are. They located this camp but didn’t realise that the farms were there. That gives us a chance of getting people clear.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Head south. Rejoin your own farm group and get yourselves away.”

“What will you do?” she asked quietly.

“Engage them for as long as we can, then break off.”

There was no need to point out how difficult that would be.

“You’d better go while there are still a few hours of light left,” Dautsch finished.

“Good luck,” she said, for want of anything better to say.

As she turned to leave, he spoke again.

“I shouldn’t have asked for the drop,” he said. “It was over-ambitious and I’ve brought this down on us all. I should have kept our heads down, waited it out.”

“We couldn’t wait forever. Remember?”

“We got a briefing download when they made the drop. No details, but the fleet is coming. We only needed to hold on for a few more weeks.”

Looking at him, Alice realised with shock that the confident man she’d known all these months was gone. In his own mind, Dautsch had made a terrible mistake and now his troops and those he’d come to protect were paying the price. He turned his back to her before she could say anymore.

No other civilians remained in the camp and she charted a lonely course back towards what had been her own settlement before they’d met the marines. When it became too dark to see where she was going, Alice settled in to wait for dawn. She could still hear the fighting in the distance and several times caught sight of missiles arcing down onto the site of the camp. After a day of hard walking, and almost in spite of herself, Alice slipped into a restless slumber.

She woke at first light, as rain began to fall. To the north there was an ominous silence. Resuming her trek, a thought occurred to her, one that should have come before. What would she do if she found no one at the farm?  What if they’d already evacuated, leaving her alone? Once that thought arrived, it tormented her. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself blundering around the uncharted wilderness until starvation or illness felled her. When she heard the sound of voices,
Alice threw caution aside and ran towards them.

Two of her old group looked up from the banana patata crop, startled, as
Alice came crashing out of the undergrowth.

“Boss,” one of them said, “what are you doing here?”

“Thank God, you’re still here,” she exclaimed. “Why are you still here?”

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what?’” she demanded. Then looking at their baffled expressions, she realised they didn’t know of the attack. Shielded by the hills between them and the main camp, they’d seen and heard nothing.

“We have to get out of here!”

Alice
waited impatiently, occasionally glancing to the north. Around her pandemonium reigned. People were attempting to pack up everything they could. The sky above them was a monotone grey and the rain was falling hard now, drowning out any other sounds. Instinct told her to shout at them to drop everything and move, but her intellect said that was exactly what they couldn’t afford to do. A few weeks until the fleet arrived Dautsch had said. No, she couldn’t believe that. That promise had been made and broken too many times now. Even if it was true, a few weeks were more than enough to starve.

Badie approached.

“Another half hour,” he said forestalling her question. “We had people out on the fields that haven’t even got back in yet.”

“We can’t wait much longer.”

“We have to. We have wives and husbands that won’t leave without their spouses,” he replied, before hurrying away again.

There was no warning. The big Nameless gunboat dropped from cloud cover, its engines howling to full power. The muzzles of it guns flashed and rockets raced out, terminating in explosions that shook the ground and cut down men and women only beginning to react. Hovering in the air, lines dropped from its belly and Nameless soldiers came abseiling down.

“Run!”
Alice screamed as she reached for her pistol. “Everyone, run!”

Then she was on the ground with no memory of how she got there. She could see people, people she had known, running, screaming, falling and dying. The sounds were muted, as if they were from another world. Turning her head, she saw the gunboat moving forward slowly, guns still flashing. Below the Nameless infantry squad unhitched their lines and reached for their guns.

Dazed, Alice raised her hand to her face, but it wasn’t there. Her arm ended just above her wrist and blood oozed through torn flesh over white bone. A Nameless soldier saw her move and raised its gun. Alice watched helplessly, knowing she should move and knowing she could not. From behind the Nameless, something flashed and there was no warning for the gunboat as a missile speared out of the forest and knifed into it. The ensuing explosion tore open the fuselage, rupturing gas cells. The engines howled now, battling but failing to keep the mortally wounded craft airborne. Then the gunboat’s munitions detonated as it ploughed into the forest. Seconds later, the Nameless soldiers began dropping as gunfire ripped into them and Alice lost consciousness.

“We can’t make the problem any worse, we operate or she dies.”

“What are her chances?”

“At best... Fifty-fifty. She really needs a blood transfusion but we don’t have the means to give one.”

Alice
opened her eyes and attempted to speak. All she could manage was a dry croak. It was dark but there was enough light to make out Badie’s silhouette leaning over her. Even that effort was enough for her nearly to pass out, but she fought to stay conscious. She was tightly wrapped in blankets and lying in a crudely built shelter.

“Boss, can you hear me?” he said. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

“Twenty kilometres from camp,” he replied. “We’re laid up for the day.”

Over his shoulder a tired and bloodstained marine looked down at her.

“A few of the marines got away and came our way. They used up their last missile saving us,” Badie explained.

“They owed us,” she whispered. “How many got away?”

“The Colonel led a counter attack to buy…”

“No. How many of my people?”

“We lost eleven boss,” Badie replied. “Boss, I’m so sorry but we’re going to have to amputate your arm at the elbow. We have no choice.”

Alice could feel the blackness rising again and this time couldn’t fight it.

“Badie, in my pocket, a map,” she whispered.

As her voice dropped he leaned in.

“That’s where I sent the supplies. Take my stripes. You’re in charge now.”

Chapter Seventeen

Day of Retribution

10th April 2069 

Positioned on the very shores of intergalactic space, the gulf between the arms of the Milky Way was not a place for humanity. The holograms, which usually showed views of outside the ship to prevent the crew from going mad with claustrophobia, had mostly been turned off, as even the steadiest individuals felt the chill of the unimaginable emptiness beyond the hull. But in this war, if not a place of comfort, this was a place of safety, a place where the Worms couldn’t reach them and final preparations could be made.
Spectre
, her sister ship
Phantom
, the strike boat carrier
Pankhurst
, three support ships and, bringing up the rear, the lumbering presence of the former bulk carrier
Sherlock
, now converted to a very different purpose, all drifted while within their hulls, their crews prepared. 

Willis steadied herself on one of the deckhead grab bars and looked over the shoulder of the Russian army officer as he worked through his checklist. Finally a green tick icon appeared on his screen and he looked up at her.

“That is all of the warheads done, Captain,” he said. “I will have to check again before the attack, but I can certify these warheads as cleared for operation. The missile propulsion systems are your responsibility.”

“Thank you, Major,” Willis replied as he straightened up. “I should be able to confirm the time of the assault to you within the next few hours, so that you can plan your check. On an unrelated matter the wardroom extends its hospitality to you this evening.”

The grim-faced Russian smiled slightly.

“A last supper before we go forth. I will be happy to accept,” he replied. He rubbed at his eyes. “I am still waking up, so I will have to beg to be excused if I fall asleep into my plate.”

“You might not be the only one, Major,” she replied with a smile.

After leaving Earth, the squadron had made its way across the front line and back towards the worlds of the Nameless. To avoid detection, most of their cool down jump in points had been to interstellar space, while most of the crew had been in Deep Sleep hibernation for the journey to save on supplies. The weeks of travel had been close to the sleep system’s safety limits and several of the crew were still shaking off the effects.

“I’d imagine the fleet doesn’t often entertain national military officers. At least not outside of space dock,” the Major said.

“True enough.”

Willis looked around
Spectre
’s magazine. Missiles lay waiting in their racks, mostly standard anti-ship, but six of were for a very different purpose. Painted yellow and black so that there would be no mistaking them, they were five-megaton thermonuclear devices, each fitted with ablative nose cones to allow atmospheric re-entry and, worst of all – Cobalt Sixty tampers.

Willis had never heard of them before they were brought on board her ship. God knows, she considered herself to be a hard-nosed officer who’d seen too much to get sentimental. But what she’d subsequently read about these enhanced weapons in public and military sources had been enough to send a shiver down her spine.

The governments of the Council had never been comfortable with the fleet – an essentially stateless military – possessing nuclear weapons, while for its part, the fleet was equally content not to have them. In the vacuum of space, such weapons were far less effective than in atmosphere, which combined with other practical problems meant they offered too few advantages for too many practical, political and ethical complications.

But for this mission, no other weapon would do.

Leaving the magazine and the Russian major, Willis made her way up to the bridge.

“Captain,” said the officer of the watch as she entered, “I was about to call you.”

“What is it?” Willis replied as she glanced around the bridge displays, making sure everything was in place.

“The reconnaissance ship has just jumped in,” he nodded towards the holo, set to wide view. “They’re three hours out but their transmission has just reached the flagship. The scout is making the approach in real space.”

Willis nodded. Without a star or planetary bodies to get a fix on, jumps were pretty inaccurate out here and the scout’s commander had clearly decided to traverse the gap between them in real space rather than risk a jump that might end up even more off target.

“Did we get the data upload as well?”

“Yes. Captain. Flag forwarded it onto all ships.”

He nodded to a rating and the scout’s reading appeared on the main holo.

The information they’d gained from the captured data had been sketchy, navigation data but not much more. There hadn’t been time for scouts to be dispatched from and return to Earth with the detailed information needed to plan an attack. Instead
Pankhurst
had to give up three of her strike boats to carry scouts and, along with the rest of the squadron, had set off from Earth knowing that they’d have to work out the fine detail when they got there.

Headquarters had designated the system KINGDOM and the star at its centre was slightly larger than Earth’s sun. It was perhaps a little older but still in its middle years, so stable. Orbiting it were seven major planets – two frozen rocky planets in the outer orbits, three gas giants with their attendant moons dominating the middle orbits and two more rocky planets occupying the inner orbits. Of these last two, one was smack in the middle of the star’s Goldilocks zone and reading at about two percent more massive than Earth. Atmosphere readings indicated oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in ratios compatible with life, as they knew it.

There were three large space docks in orbit along with one major station of a type Willis immediately recognised

“That’s a space elevator,” she murmured to herself.

It was no surprise the Nameless race could have such technology. Earth had one after all but Earth’s was at the centre of the human universe and was only used for the bulkiest of cargo. If they applied human criteria, this planet had a population that likely only ran to tens of millions. The elevator’s tether traced downwards to the edge of the only major city in the entire system. Planetary defences seemed to consist of several small starforts, an unknown number of weapons satellites and a small squadron of warships based around two capital ships. There was no sign of any carriers but there were various small transports moving around. Out on the edge of the Blue Line was a space gate with what looked like another two starforts as protection. Out in the wider system, there appeared to be a fuel industry hard at work around the second largest of the gas giants.

“Call up Tactical,” Willis said. “I know flag is working on it but I want us to look into it just in case we spot something they don’t. First figure out which direction that tether will fall if we take out the station and if it will land on anything expensive.”

“Would that be important ma’am? I mean if we...”

Willis glanced towards him.

“Yes, you are likely right but worth considering anyway.”

“I just wonder whether this is the right thing to do.”

The question wasn’t put to the table at large. It was said during a gap in the discussions but and was heard by all. Conversation ceased as all eyes focused on the source of the question. It was the ship’s doctor and he had been talking to the purser.

“We’re obeying our orders,” Commander Yaya said flatly.

The Doctor briefly looked awkward at finding himself at the centre of attention, then his expression became defiant.

“When you strip away the military language and political niceties, those orders are to burn a world to the ground,” he said. “We aren’t just targeting a civilian population; we intend to render even the land they stand on dead. We are planning to turn their world into a sterile, lifeless planet and we don’t even know that will work!”

“It’s not as if they haven’t done the same to others,” the ship’s navigator dismissively retorted. “So sauce for the goose as far as I’m concerned.”

“So we lower ourselves to their level?” the Doctor responded heatedly.

Two officers started to reply with equal force but were cut off by the sound of a glass being tapped with increasing force. Everyone looked to the head of the table as Willis lowered her glass.

“Calmly everyone,” she said, looking around the table.

Spectre
’s wardroom was a microcosm of a fleet at war, with pre-war officers holding the senior positions. By peacetime standards, most were young for their rank as they filled dead men’s boots. Next came the fleet’s reservists and, after them, those who had been transferred into the fleet from the national militaries – men and women from different traditions but still professional soldiers. Finally there were those who had volunteered and come directly from the civilian world. That last group in particular, came to the fleet with a different mindset, not necessarily worse, but different.

“First and foremost, doctor, we are doing this because we have been ordered to,” she told him.

“Some terrible things have been done by soldiers who then said ‘I was obeying orders’,” the Doctor replied sullenly.

Yaya started to speak but stopped when Willis raised her hand.

“That, Doctor, is unfortunately very true, but some even worse things have been done by men and women in uniform, who decided to pick and choose which orders they would obey.
I’m not finished, Doctor
. No one knows whether we can even successfully put in this attack. What we do know is that with their drone soldiers, in the war to date the Nameless have only suffered at most a few thousand ‘real’ casualties. This will be our first and probably only real chance to bring the true cost of war home to them.”

“We do not know what effect a successful attack will have. Will it be shock and awe or something that they will ever after seek to avenge? No one knows. But we have been given an order by Council, a gathering of the governments of the majority of the human race and, as such, the most legitimate body that any military force in the history of the human race has ever answered to. We as individuals have the right to have private reservations, but as officers of Battle Fleet, our duty is to carry out our orders.”

“You certainly slapped the Doctor down pretty hard,” Yaya observed as Willis poured a drink.

With the conclusion of the meal she had invited Yaya to her cabin to cover a few last points before she retired for the night.

“I would have said that was fairly gentle,” Willis replied as she slid over a glass. “Saying a soldier should disobey an immoral order is nice in theory, but when people say that, they always consider themselves to be on the right side of the moral argument. It never seems to occur to them that someone might take the same factors and get a different answer, which they to consider to be the moral choice.”

“May I ask, Captain, whether you think this will work?”

“Depends on what your definition of work is,” Willis replied as she swirled the drink round her glass.

“I would say that preventing them from wiping us from the universe would be the pertinent one,” Yaya replied.

Willis smiled slightly as she glanced at her second-in-command. They’d got along well since she first arrived on
Spectre
, principally because Willis had recognised Yaya as being very much a younger version of herself – although the Commander seemed to have avoided the worst of the career missteps Willis had made.

“Well, if that is your definition, I think it’s already failed,” she said after a pause.

“Captain?” Yaya said sharply.

“If our definition of success is to pin down the Nameless reserves in defensive positions while the Home Fleet attacks, then I think we can succeed in that. But that’s a short term objective.”

Willis smiled bleakly.

“In the long term... The Nameless believes us to be a threat to their continued survival,” she continued. “If we succeed with this mission or even get close enough for them to know what we tried, we’ll confirm as fact what up to now they have merely believed.”

Willis leaned back in her chair and sighed.

“In some respects it’s a tragedy for the Nameless and everyone they have encountered. They believe so profoundly that we are threats, that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and now we have to
become
threats just to survive. Personally, I believe this will reinforce their attitude towards us – that we are a threat that must be destroyed. I don’t think this will be the last shots of this war but it will be the first of the next.”

“But we’ll do it?”

“Yep. I don’t have any better ideas on what we could do – and as I said, we have our orders.”

“In six days time the Home Fleet begins its attack,” Commodore Tneba said as the holo displayed the system. “Given the distance between us, the exact moment is unknown and unknowable. But our attack has to go in first since the element of surprise is essential for us. So it will have to be the old bait and switch.”