The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (44 page)

“I can’t identify the target. Wait, I’ve got it.”

“I have the target locked…”

“Just lost my port engine!”

“Watch the right. Watch the right!”

“Target destroyed.”

“Ejecting!”

“Strike Leader to all wings, enemy is fielding new missiles and fighters, both improvements on previous versions.
Dauntless
number Two Wing, we have identified a secondary fighter launch facility. Move and engage.”

“Understood, Strike Leader Wing, follow me, Second Section hold up here,” Alanna replied as she pointed the nose down.

Dubious
’s radar was designed for open space, not to deal with the clutter of ground returns. Beside her, Schurenhofer swore softly as she tried to sort through the conflicting signals.

“Fresh contacts, dead ahead!”

“Engaging with missiles!”

Half a dozen contacts appeared and Alanna rolled
Dubious
as missiles accelerated off their rails. The threat detection system whooped loudly as enemy missiles burned towards them and their turret guns stabbed to the left and right. Explosions erupted ahead of them as
Dubious
’s missiles went in.

“Have you got a fix on the launch point?” Alanna demanded as she dropped
Dubious
below the hill line to avoid incoming ground fire.

“No, Strike Leader didn’t get a good fix – must be buried,” Schurenhofer replied. “We’ll need them to launch more.”

It wasn’t just missiles. Plasma bolts were burning past them now.

“Well it’s around here somewhere,” Alanna said as she released chaff rockets.

“Hang on, fighters... Christ, they’re coming out underneath us!”

There was a bang and a jolt as a plasma bolt punched up through the starboard wing. Alanna swore savagely as she threw
Dubious
into a spiral that put her nose straight down. In front, half a dozen Nameless fighters accelerated in. Behind them a camouflaged hangar door was closing.

“Wing,” she shouted into the radio, “target the launcher! I’ve got the fighters!”

As they spiralled through a hail of fire,
Dubious
shuddered as she was hit again. The status board was still green and Nameless fighters flashed past to their left and right as Alanna yanked the nose back around and rammed the throttle to plus ten override. The spaceframe let out a groan of complaint at the abuse and Alanna gasped as the G-forces pressed her back into her seat.
Dubious
came to a virtual halt in the sky, nose pointed up at the tails of the Nameless fighters. Alanna put a long burst into one, while Schurenhofer picked off two more with the turret guns. They clipped a fourth and watched as its engines cut out and it started to tumble as gravity claimed it.

“Missile away!” a voice on the radio announced.

Second later, they saw an anti-ship missile plunge downward and into the concealed hangar. A flash of light from behind lit up the cockpit.

“Target destroyed!”

“Strike Leader, target destroyed! We are returning…”

The sight of her wingman taking a direct hit suddenly interrupted her. She watched, transfixed, as the cockpit ejected seconds before the shattered Raven disintegrated and fell away.

“Shit,” she hissed. “Strike Leader, I’m returning to my holding position.”

___________________________

Lewis winced inwardly as the blip representing a cap ship missile merged with that of the
Loki
and a moment later, the heavy cruiser started flashing multiple damage codes. So far their losses hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared. One destroyer had been destroyed and the cruiser
Charles Martel
so badly damaged she could do little more than shelter inside the perimeter.

The Nameless had learned from past experience. Thanks to the presence of the barrage ships, their mass salvoes – so characteristic of their tactics in the past – now merely represented a waste of ammunition. Instead, they were spreading out their ships and directing in steady streams of missiles from multiple bearings, searching for chinks in the barrage ships’ protective walls of fire, always picking on one target.

At this range it should have been just cap ship missiles, but here too the Nameless revealed another change. Their smaller dual-purpose missiles now made a brief burn after launch, then powered down and went ballistic until within a thousand kilometres of the Home Fleet, at which point they reactivated and accelerated in for final attack. It was a tactic that gave them most of the advantages of close range fire while staying well out of harm’s way. Within the Home Fleet’s formation, squadrons manoeuvred to offer as much mutual protection as possible.

“What have you got for me, Captain?” Lewis asked as he sensed Sheehan approach.

“The fighters report they have suppressed or destroyed sixty-five percent of the lunar targets but they’ve expended ninety percent of their ordnance.”

“Have they got the critical ones?”

“All but one, sir. The installation codenamed the Rose is still operational.”

Lewis considered his options. The
Mississippi
group was at best a glass hammer and if it failed, he would have no choice but to take his ships into the meat grinder he so desperately wanted to avoid.

“Bridge, Admiral,” Captain Holfe’s voice came across the intercom. “Enemy fighters are leaving their holding positions.”

Lewis turned back towards the holo. The Nameless fighters weren’t approaching the Home Fleet. They were instead on a course to cross over the top, towards the moon.

“Damn it,” Lewis cursed.

“Sir?”

“Captain, they’ve realised they we aren’t attacking those installations just to clear our own path.”

Like the Rose, there were installations on the far side of the moon, which although not in a position to threaten the Home Fleet, would be perfectly placed to fire on
Mississippi
. The Nameless commander or its staff had worked out that the Home Fleet was a decoy, one that had already sucked their fleet away from the moon.

“Coms, instruct our escort fighters to block the enemy fighters,” Lewis ordered.

“Which ones?”

“All of them!” Lewis snapped back.

On the holo, a quarter of the Nameless fleet had turned away and was now going full burn for the Blue Line. Lewis wracked his brain, searching for a way to block or slow them down. Once over the Blue Line, the Nameless would be free to jump and, if he were right, that jump would place them on the far side of the moon, ready to intercept the
Mississippi
group.

“Captain, order Strike Leader to put all remaining assets onto the Rose. We must neutralise it at all costs and we must do it quickly. Send a message drone to our strike boat carriers. Order them to launch a maximum effort strike against the enemy units heading for the Blue Line. They must stop them or at the very least slow them down. And turn the fleet through ninety degrees towards the enemy’s mobile units. There’s no point getting any closer to the planet now.”

Sheehan took a quick glance at the holo.

“Those enemy ships still have fighters escorting them, sir,” he said. “The strike boats will take serious losses.”

Lewis didn’t hesitate for a second with his reply.

“That’s unavoidable, Captain.”

___________________________

Seated at the back of
Freyia
’s bridge, where his presence was just about tolerated, Jeff followed events intently. The atmosphere was one of near silent and intense concentration. He’d been allowed to set his suit intercom to listen to the command channel, while he panned his camera across the bridge. This was his first proper space battle and it was certainly different from what he’d even half expected.

Captain Hicks gave orders in short terse bursts and then waited to see the consequences of those orders as he stared at the bridge holo. With the bridge decompressed, there was no other sound except from the intercom. Jeff could feel the deck plating trembling from the force of the engines and small jolts each time the plasma cannons fired. But there was no sound and that struck him as profoundly... well, it was just wrong! So he attempted to fill the silence with his own commentary.

“As you can see from the holo,” he said to his future audience, “there are no clever computer graphics here. Those are neither needed nor wanted. Instead, everything is kept as simple as possible. Yet, it still takes years for the officers and crew to learn how to read what they are shown. With scores of ships and hundreds of other contacts like missiles and fighters, it isn’t hard to be simply overwhelmed by the amount of data received.”

That was certainly truth in journalism. After his time on reconnaissance ships, Jeff had thought he could read a display holo, but this? There was no doubt stuff was happening, but he could understand none of it.

On the intercom, an alarm briefly sounded and the holo flashed red before zooming in. A mass of detail disappeared as the focus switched to just the
Freyia
, her squadron and the immediate area of space around them...
and the streams of red blips coming right at them!

“Bridge, Tactical. Contacts crossing inner perimeter, time to impact forty seconds!”

“Coms, signal
Valkyrie
we are taking evasive action,” Hicks shouted. “Helm, turn us towards them. Point Defence batteries, commence, commence, commence! Countermeasures on my mark, full spread. All hands, brace for impact!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are being targeted by multiple enemy ships firing from several different directions. Even combined with those of other two ships in the squadron,
Freyia
’s flak guns can’t target all the missiles in the time available. So Captain Hicks has turned his ship into the oncoming fire to present the smallest possible target,”

That was what Jeff wanted to say in his best and calmest professional voice, but if he said anything at all, it was an incoherent mumble as every muscle in his body attempted to clench simultaneously and
Freyia
turned into the storm. In their sponsons, her flak guns rattled away knocking down incoming missiles, while in the ventral and dorsal turrets, plasma cannons speared at targets more elusive than they were designed to deal with. Around the cruiser, space erupted in explosions and in flame.

“Countermeasures!” Hicks roared, thumping the armrest of his command chair.

From across
Freyia
’s hull, small rockets lifted from their silos, bursting between the cruiser and the onrushing missiles, scattering a curtain of radar-disrupting chaff. Some missiles lost their lock and detonated and others veered away. As they plunged through the chaff, most of those left could not adjust in time to steer in. But a few held their course and charged in with murder in mind. In his seat Jeff could only hang on as the cruiser bucked like a horse gone wild.

“Cap ship missiles! One to port! Two to starboard!” someone called out.

On the holo, Jeff could see the three big ship killers and with them another half dozen of the smaller dual-purpose missiles.

“Helm! Port five degrees, engines emergency power! Fire control, concentrate fire to port!” Hicks bellowed.

The red blips converged with the big green blip at the centre of the holo, the one symbolising
Freyia
.

“Oh God! We’ll be kill…”

Jeff didn’t get a chance to finish.

There was no noise or flash, just an almighty concussion. The side of Jeff’s helmet smashed against the nearest wall. Lights flashed inside his head, his teeth snapped down on his tongue and he heard someone scream. For several seconds he was as dazed as a punch-drunk boxer. Then, as voices resumed across the command channel, Jeff gathered his wits.

“Jesus Christ!” he muttered.

Droplets of blood were stuck to the inside of his visor.

“We’re still alive, but I think we’ve been hit bad,” he mumbled around his already swelling tongue.

“Damage Control, report,” the Captain was demanding.

“Bridge, Damage Control. We’ve lost the port wing, looks like that cap missile took it, and the upper port passive array has been torn away. Point defence gun P1 primary command line has been severed. We’ve got some splinter damage in Frames Five to Eight. We took two hits from dual-purpose missiles but the armour kept them out. Confirmed, we are still combat worthy.”

Hicks grunted an acknowledgement.

“Helm, get us back into formation before the bastards have another go.”

On the holo, the next stream of missiles was on its way, another ship was about the meet the storm. God willing – if there was such a being Jeff thought – they’d be as good, or lucky, as
Freyia
.

___________________________

“This is Strike Leader to all wings, sound off anyone who still has anti-ship ordnance.”