The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (39 page)

The commanding officers of the small squadron had been gathered on board the
Phantom
to hash out the details of the attack.

“While the system defences aren’t that impressive, they are enough to fend off any direct assault we could make. Fortunately, the
Sherlock
doesn’t have to get particularly close to the planet to do her thing, but she does need time to establish her position and work out the firing solution. That is something that cannot be done if she’s taking hits.”

“For best effect,” added Commander Bronsman of the
Sherlock
, “we need to strike at the side of the planet with the city and space elevator.”

“As I understand it,” Willis said, “with these weapons, it hardly matters which part of the planet we hit.”

“That’s assuming the Nameless aren’t as casual about the lives of their civilians as they are with their military.”

Tneba paused and shrugged.

“There’s simply no way to know, yet,” he resumed. “If we hit towns on the far side of the planet, the city won’t be affected by the initial bombardment but the fallout cloud will reach them within two or three weeks. Just a few hours of exposure from Cobalt Sixty will be fatal and the radiation levels will remain so too long for anyone to wait it out in a shelter. No, if the Nameless place any value on their civilian population, they’ll attempt to evacuate and that’s when we’ll know. But right now, we need to land our strike on or near the city.”

There were grim expressions around the table but no one objected.

“So we need to draw the mobile units away and pull the orbital defences over to the far side of the planet,” Tneba continued. “That requires splitting our forces.”

He pressed a control and the holographic solar system twirled and spun.

“There are two targets in the system that the Nameless will defend if threatened – the fuel industry around the gas giant and the space gate over the inhabited planet.”

He pressed the controls again and the holo froze.

“This position occurs roughly every seventeen hours. The space gate is on the opposite side of the planet from the space elevator. I plan to dispatch
Pankhurst
’s strike boats against the gate during one of these orbital periods. Irrespective of whether they destroy it, the very act of it being attacked should compel them to start moving most or all of their mobile units up and out of the planet’s mass shadow. Simultaneously with our strike boats pulling away, I will then take
Phantom
in against the gas giant’s fuel industry, thus forcing them to pursue into that planet’s mass shadow. Once they’ve cleared,
Spectre
will escort and protect the
Sherlock
as she attacks.”

“That will put you a very long way into the gas giant’s mass shadow, sir,” Willis commented.

“And in danger of being cut off,” Bronsman added.

“True, true,” Tneba said, “but if we are to get any action, we’ll have to show a little leg.”

“Would the
Spectre
be a better choice than the flag ship, sir?” Willis carefully asked.

Tneba shook his head.

“The ship covering the
Sherlock
will have to get into position well ahead of time and once there will have to stay silent. I need to remain in control and
Phantom
’s engines are in slightly better condition than
Spectre
’s, no offence.
Spectre
simply has more kilometres on the clock and for this purpose, speed is more important than armour. I could shift my flag to
Spectre
but I believe the critical tactical decision will be when
Phantom
makes her move. The big decision at this point is finding somewhere to put
Spectre
and
Sherlock
so that they can see developments around the planet, without being so far back that time lag becomes a problem.”

“My own tactical team, sir, believes we have found such a spot,” Willis said as she pointed into the holo. “The readings from the reconnaissance ships picked up a comet, a big one about four light minutes out from the objective. Its current position means nothing around any of the planets with activity have line of sight behind it.”

“That’s a pretty tight jump in,” Tneba said, slightly dubious.

“Ideally, sir, we’d want to be jumping to make our attack as the mobile units chase you across the Blue Line into the gas giant’s mass shadow. The closer in we are, the better we can make that judgement call,” she continued. “It is achievable. We’d have to make a couple of jumps in quick succession but the first will allow us to get a good enough fix to make the second. If we can take one of the reconnaissance ships with us, then we can use its towed array to watch and stay completely behind the comet.”

“Alright, but I’ll want my own staff to check the maths on that,”

“Of course.”

Because God knows
, Willis thought to herself,
if we’ve screwed up the navigation calculations, I’d rather find out now.

The following few days managed to be both intensely busy and interminably drawn out. Even at this late stage, there was always a chance that an abort order could be issued. Each time Communications reported an FTL transmission, Willis found herself going tense but every time it was identified as Nameless. In the engine rooms and weapons bays, systems were checked then double-checked. In the personnel section, all unnecessary fittings and personal effects were stripped out and sent over to the support ships. Every gram removed was mass that wouldn’t have to be accelerated when the time came and that tiny difference might be vital. As captain, Willis was the only person on board without enough to occupy the days and eventually she found herself alone in her cabin with an old fashioned pen and a sheet of paper.

She’d got as far as
Dear Mum and Dad
, before stalling.

She had written them a goodbye letter years ago, back when she was a junior lieutenant, before the war, when death was more likely to be the product of an accident than anything else.

Since the start of the war she’d periodically thought about updating it, but the thought had only occurred when combat was imminent and time too short. Before they left Earth would have been the time but she hadn’t got to it, probably as much a mental defence as anything else. A goodbye letter was an acknowledgement of the possibility of a future you wouldn’t have a place in, a line of thought not many people would wish to pursue.

Also, thinking about the future meant thinking about the past. There would be only one letter. Aside from her parents, there wasn’t really anyone else to write to. On her desk was a picture, something that should already have been sent over to the transport but she couldn’t bring herself to part with it. The photograph was of her and Vincent Espey on their graduation day. If he were still alive to read it, he would have got a letter.

She’d always put career ahead of people and now, looking back, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret.
Hey! I’ve done stuff
, she mentally reprimanded herself. I’m good at what I do and what I do is important. Maybe there aren’t many people who’ll miss me but right now, it’s hard to see that being a bad thing. If I do make it, then I’ve got time to change that. The internal demons didn’t have an answer for that. Willis nodded to herself and picked up the pen again.

Dear Mum and Dad,

If you are reading this, then the worst has happened. Given the nature of these things, odds are it was quick for me. I know you never really wanted me to join the forces and this is probably the day you’ve feared, but you always supported me and I thank you for that. I suppose, if I do die, the only really irritating thing will be that I won’t know how it all turned out…

As
Spectre
lurched back into real space the collision detection siren screamed. Across the command channel, Willis heard the helmsman swear as he flipped to manual and went all-astern on the engines. The cruiser shuddered and jolted violently and Willis felt the harness straps bite into her shoulders.

“Navigation!” she demanded.

“We’re off target! We’ve come out… inside the comet’s tail!”

On the visual display she could see the reconnaissance ship being thrown about by the comet’s boiling gasses. Bigger and heavier, the
Sherlock
was weathering the unexpected conditions better than her smaller comrades.

“Got positional lock! We came out a hundred K closer to the comet than we should.
Jesus Christ
! I think we only just missed its mass shadow!”

Willis could see the navigator’s face had gone pale.

No time to think about that, at the rear of their formation,
Sherlock
had gone all back on her engines and was now slip-sliding out of the comet’s tail.

“Helm, eighty percent back on Engines Two and Four, starboard side thrusters to full!” she snapped as
Spectre
continued to pitch.

“Got it,” the helmsman shouted back as he worked the controls.

As they slid clear the pitching faded away.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” the navigator started to say, “I must have…”

“No time for that now,” she cut him off before flicking her intercom to the main command channel. “This is Bridge to all department heads. Commander Yaya, I need a full damage control check of the forward compartments. Engineering, Coms, Sensors and Fire Control, I want full systems checks. Report in ten minutes!”

Her orders prompted a collection of affirmatives across the channel. That done, Willis turned to the navigation display. The difference between where they had intended to come out and where they’d actually emerged was tiny, barely a few hundred kilometres. Compared to the multiple astronomical units they’d jumped, the difference was merely fractions of one percent. Yet it had nearly killed them and might do so yet.

The emergence point was outside the blind spot they’d been aiming for. Could the Nameless have spotted them through the comet’s plume material? If they had, this offensive could be about to end very badly. Minutes crawled past as around her the crew worked. Willis paid particular attention the coms section. If the Nameless had seen something, then communications chatter would be the likely giveaway. But the solar system remained peaceful. On the bridge though, reports started to filter through from both inside and outside the ship.

“Bridge, Sensors. We’ve gone blind on the forward ventral passive array.”

“Bridge, Coms. Laser signal from reconnaissance ship. They report they’ve sustained micro-asteroid strikes. They’ve taken casualties and their towed array has been ripped away. Report from
Sherlock
, they’ve taken several small hull breaches and scoring to the forward abrasion plates but report as fully functional.”

Willis listened impassively as her subordinates reported in.

“Any chance of a work around?” she asked as Yaya finished.

“We’ll try but I’m not optimistic, ma’am,” the Commander reported. “The passive array took a direct hit. About a third of it just isn’t there anymore and the Lazarus systems can’t seem to find a working power connection.”

“Keep hands working on it for the moment,” Willis instructed, “we’ll just have to manage.”

To have sustained damage to her ship at this early stage wasn’t good, but the damage to the recon ship was a more immediate problem. The whole point of the small ship was to spool out its towed array to allow them to see past the comet without revealing anything that might be spotted in return. It was gone but they still had to be able to see the Nameless planet to judge when to move.

“Helm, shut down the dorsal wing’s manoeuvring engine and programme thrusters to move us just far enough to show the dorsal tower. We’ll move up in an hour, when the engine has cooled down.”

She glanced up at the bridge clock.
Phantom
and the strike boats would still be getting into position. It was now seventy minutes to kick off.

Willis found herself holding her breath as
Spectre
slid slowly upwards. How closely were the Worms observing the space surrounding the planet? Was there a screen on the planet or on one of the orbiting starforts, registering that the comet’s profile had just changed? As the cruiser’s dorsal tower crested the top of the comet, a quick burst from the thrusters arrested their drift. As they did, the surviving passive arrays started to get their first reading and Willis felt herself calm a little.

For the past hour she’d been forcing herself not to fidget as they waited. But in that time, not much seemed to have changed compared to the previous reading received from the reconnaissance ship before they jumped in. There was traffic near the space gate and several of the Nameless warships were visible in orbit. But there was no sign of any alarm. The engines of the warships were still cold, while transports continued to go about their business.

“Bridge, Sensors. Captain, one of the enemy ships moving towards the gate is not a transport. Engine profile is consistent with a cruiser, moving at low acceleration.”