The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (57 page)

“Sensors, what’s
Warspite
’s status?”

“I see a major plasma leak from her engines but she’s still underway and firing.” 

“Looks like
Warspite
’s lost her coms,” Hicks said, looking troubled. “Who’s next in chain of command?”

“Admiral Sekhar, on board the
Fortitude
, sir. We’re being instructed to shift formation and fill in the gaps.”

“What have we still got in terms of good anti-missile ships?”

“Right now, sir, we have the
Yavuz Sultan Selim
, the
Fortitude
and the
Io
. I can’t see any of the barrage ships – I think we’ve lost the last of them.”

“Bridge, Coms. Orders from
Fortitude
, Captain. Fleet is to turn ninety degrees to port and make best fleet speed.”

“Understood. Helm, adjust heading.”

On the holo Jeff could see that the turn placed the newly arrived Nameless astern. They were launching the first of their missiles but even Jeff could see that their overtake velocity was slow.

“With the barrage ships gone, fleet speed has actually gone up a bit,” someone said and Hicks nodded.

“Looks like Sekhar is in command now,” Hicks said. “I wonder what he’ll do. The Worms will probably jump some of their sections out onto our flanks in…”

“Bridge, Coms. Captain, we’re receiving a transmission from
Warspite
, its’ low powered... I think it’s a suit radio.” The communication officer looked up from her console with an expression of surprise. “Captain, it’s an any ships request for a pick up. Admiral Lewis is transferring off!”

“Bridge, Sensors. We have ships jumping in, bearing zero, seven, six, dash, one, six, eight – range,
one fifty thousand kilometres. I count thirty of them.”

Jeff could barely keep pace as he swung his camera back and forth towards the different voices. The Captain though, seemed to be calmly keeping ahead of developments. He turned back to the front of his bridge.

“Looks like we’ve got the best position for a pick up. Helm, break formation and put us on intercept for
Warspite
. Coms, advise
Fortitude
we are making for
Warspite
. Then get back onto whoever that is and tell them we’ll come down the port side and that we’ll get only one try. Get someone outside and on the dorsal wing!”

Hicks turned and caught sight of Jeff.

“They don’t cover this shit in training,” he said with a wild grin.

___________________________

“Main coms is down, as is the back up,” Captain Holfe said, his expression bleak as Lewis pulled himself through the hatch into the main bridge. “We’ve lost everything – radio hook up to the main grid, the coms lasers, even a good chunk of internal communications.”

When
Warspite
’s flag bridge had lost power, Lewis immediately abandoned it. Behind the Captain, Lewis could see that the Damage Control display and multiple sections were flashing red. The bridge holo was still online but had been stripped of almost all detail. There were greens and reds for friends and foes but nothing to indicate which ship was which.

“The fleet?”

“I can barely tell what the hell is going on out there, sir. All I can do is follow the fleet’s movements.”

“Captain, sir,” a junior officer shot onto the bridge. “Sir, the first officer reports main communications took a direct hit. Everyone is dead and there’s heavy damage to backup coms. It will be at least an hour before we can establish even basic coms systems.”

“We are deaf and dumb,” Holfe said grimly, before turning back to Lewis.

On the holo, the fleet re-orientated as its sub-commanders realised the flagship had dropped out of grid. With no ability to communicate, Lewis no longer held a place in the chain of command. In fact, the rest of the fleet now had to assume he was dead. That put Sekhar in command.

What to do now? As Lewis studied the holo, the fleet turned and accelerated away from the newly arrived Nameless. The aliens should have done as their colleagues and jumped in closer to force immediate contact. But after days of savage losses, perhaps some Worm had finally succumbed to the siren call of self-preservation and a desire to finish the job without further loss. Turning away was giving the Home Fleet time to re-establish formation but would Sekhar use that time to jump away? The order might already have been given. He would only know when ships began to disappear.

“Sir,” Holfe replied, “my ship can move and she can fight, but she cannot serve as a command vessel. We
have
to get you off this ship.”

“Have we got a shuttle?” Lewis asked.

“No,” said the junior officer still awaiting orders. “We’ve had them all checked and even the ones that haven’t been obliterated are beyond use.”

“We need a shuttle to come to us,” Holfe said. “But we haven’t the coms to communicate with anyone.”

“Put someone in an airlock and use their suit radio,” Sheehan said.

“If that doesn’t work, get someone to stick out their thumb,” Lewis replied with grim humour. “Sheehan, you’ve just volunteered. Get out there.”

As Sheehan dashed away, Lewis turned back to the holo. He could see small blips racing into and through the fleet’s formation. Some probably missiles, others fighters, but whether they were friendly or hostile was impossible to tell.

Minutes crawled by and all Lewis could do was clench his fists and follow a battle he had no ability to influence. Was this the moment when everything slipped away?

“Admiral, sir,” the junior officer said reappearing at Lewis’s elbow. “We’ve managed to make contact. It’s the heavy cruiser
Freyia
under Captain Hicks. She’s already on approach for the number seven airlock.”

“That will do.” Lewis replied. “Captain Holfe, if the fleet jumps, then jump
Warspite
to the supply fleet. Make emergency repairs then get this ship back into the fight.”

“Of course,” Holfe replied simply as Lewis headed for the hatch.

“Captain Hicks says he can’t stop,” the junior officer explained breathlessly as the two of them shot down an access way. “This will be a drive-by.”

Carefully controlled movements were what they taught for moving in micro-gravity, even more so when a ship was under power. But now Lewis threw caution aside as he raced to the airlock, collecting bruises as he went.

Sheehan awaited him at the open airlock.

“We don’t have long, sir,” he said as ratings clipped long-term survival packs onto their suits.

Lewis hesitated.

“You don’t have to come, Captain.”

“Duly noted, sir.”

Stepping through the lock Lewis looked aft, along the battleship’s scarred flanks. There was
Freyia
, less than a kilometre away, angling to get around
Warspite
’s wing. Below his feet, the entire universe beckoned. Step out, it said to him, leave it all behind and fall forever. Edging along the foot rail, the additional air tank clipped to his suit grated unexpectedly against the hull. The contact was enough to momentarily loosen his grip on the handrail and he snatched desperately at it. In the corner of his eye a red light in his helmet blinked on and off as the suit registered he was at the edge of hyperventilating. Pausing for a moment, Lewis forced himself to breath slower. With him and Sheehan hanging from the side,
Warspite
couldn’t take any violent evasive action that might be required. They needed to get off the ship.

“Well, this is new,” said Sheehan nervously as the two of them waited. Lewis grunted a reply as he watched the heavy cruiser approach. Beyond her, he could see flashes of gunfire and explosions. As
Freyia
rolled smoothly to starboard, Lewis caught sight of damage all along her side. As the cruiser approached he began to make out two small figures standing on the dorsal wing’s manoeuvring engine. The cruiser was in too close now to use the main engines to brake, as the plume would fry both of them. Instead, the docking thrusters were firing continuously.

They were close enough now for Lewis to see the crewman on the wing leaning outward, one hand reaching out, the other braced by his comrade. A small dispassionate part of Lewis’s mind admired the display of perfect ship handling, as the roll was arrested, bringing the manoeuvring engine down perfectly to the level of the airlock as the cruiser slid smoothly alongside of
Warspite
. The crewman of
Freyia
stretched out his arm, Lewis could see his mouth moving, urging them on. Lewis took a deep breath, and stepped out into space.

The other man’s hand closed around his wrist and with a twist shoved him into the arms of the second man.

“Sheehan, are you there?” Lewis asked as the second man clipped him onto a safety line.

“Just about, sir,” he replied with relief in his voice. “Can we
please
go inside now?”

As he walked down the wing towards an open hatch, Lewis felt main engines firing as the ship began to accelerate. Looking back, he caught a last sight of his flagship of three years. The hull had been speckled by impacts, one of the forward passive arrays was a twisted wreck and B turret had been opened up, while astern he could discern the haziness of leaking gas. As he watched, one of the remaining turrets turned and fired at a distant target. There was a hiss in his ears as his suit radio picked up the backwash. The great battleship looked like an old attack dog, scarred, maimed, mute, yet still ready to fight any takers.

“Welcome aboard, sir,” Hicks said as Lewis was escorted onto the bridge. “Coms, make signal to all ships,
Freyia
is now flagship of the fleet!”

___________________________

“Mutter des Gottes,” Berg breathed as the fleet appeared on the holo. The Home Fleet had left Earth with four battleships, twenty cruisers, four carriers and forty or so various other types. Now Berg could see barely half that and of those, only half a dozen
weren’t
flashing a damage code. Bleeding plasma from two engines,
Black Prince
had dropped into real space a good light minute out from the fighting. Nameless ships and missiles were throwing themselves forward in a way she wouldn’t have believed if she wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes.

“Bridge, Coms. Skipper, the
Freyia
is showing as fleet flagship. Admiral Lewis is still in command.”

“What the hell is he doing on
Freyia
? Never mind. Contact her now!”

“Yes, Captain.”

The distance added an agonising delay. Behind her, Berg could still hear half a dozen alarms sounding from the engine display. The heat sink was close to melting, one engine dead, another dying,
Black Prince
was in no condition to fight. Nearly three minutes later Admiral Lewis’s tired face appeared on her screen.

“Captain, I don’t know where you came from but you’d better keep whatever it is brief,” he said tersely, glancing away from the camera as he spoke.

“Admiral, I was ordered to pursue and maintain contact with the Nameless fleet as it retreated away from the front line and Landfall. Two days ago that fleet intercepted us just as we destroyed a fuel refinery. A superior force trapped us within a mass shadow, but once we destroyed the refinery they immediately retreated. Sir, it is my belief that the Nameless fleet is flying on fumes! They are running out of fuel! We are downloading our logs to you now.”

Over the past few days Berg had attempted to rehearse what she would say. She had no proof, only a belief and perhaps only minutes or seconds to convey that belief in a convincing manner. As she looked at the battered remnants of the once formidable fleet, she wondered whether she was too late.

Two, three then four minutes went past. Then finally came a perfunctory reply.

“Message received.”

And the screen blinked out.

Berg sat back in her seat, so many planned words unsaid.

“Captain, enemy ships are moving to intercept.”

Berg shook herself. She’d delivered the word. She’d done what she could.

“Navigation, calculate a jump over the heliopause. Get us out of here.”

___________________________

“That’s a lot of conjecture based on a very small amount of evidence,” Sheehan said as he and Lewis reviewed the data download from
Black Prince
’s communication. As he quickly scrolled through it, Lewis nodded but made no reply. By the time he made it to the bridge,
Freyia
was already receiving orders to jump out of the system, orders Lewis had quickly countermanded. Sekhar had yielded only reluctantly and it was plain the man was a spent force.

He wasn’t completely wrong, though. The fleet couldn’t sustain this battering much longer. The suicide runs had decimated what was left of their best anti-missile ships. Now with those gaps in the anti-missile screen, the cap ship missiles targeted at them from further out were getting through and their destroyer screen was suffering as they tried to protect the larger ships. The next wave of ships was coming up from astern. With the Home Fleet accelerating their overtake speed was low.