The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (58 page)

On the face of it Captain Berg’s information changed nothing. Their objective remained as before: stay on the field of battle and deny the Nameless the ground they needed to command. But, with an optimism he hadn’t felt in days, Lewis realised that this changed...
everything
. Missiles would only be used up if the Home Fleet stood and let the enemy throw them. Fuel was another matter, however, because fuel was being used every moment. They couldn’t help but use it. Lewis spun back to the main holo. Several ships had lost their jump drives but Sekhar’s orders had resulted in the fleet bunching up, ships without drives had been paired with those that still did.

“We’ll jump, Captain,” Lewis said, straightening up.

“Away, sir?” Sheehan asked with surprise.

“No.”

Lewis pulled himself across the bridge to the navigation section.

“I want the fleet to jump to here.”

He pointed to a random piece of the solar system.

“We’ve stood and taken it long enough. I want a schedule of jumps to random locations around the system worked out. I want to be able to send individual ships back to resupply and then for them to be able to jump back to rejoin the fleet. I also want to be able to deploy what fighters and strike boats we have left as scouts. They’ll need to have the schedule, so that if they find something, they can jump back to us.”

“Sir?” Sheehan said trying to keep up with Lewis’s change in direction.

“We’ve been letting them use up missiles against us, but if Captain Berg is right, then their fuel is running out and we need to force them to burn it.”

Lewis glanced at the holo. The next wave of Nameless ships was closing fast and they had only a few more minutes before the he would have to turn the fleet to present their broadsides.

“Now get on with it, Captain.”

Nameless missiles, large and small, powered along in the Home Fleet’s wake. The few guns that would bear stabbed out, then the space ahead of the human ships opened up as they jumped out, leaving the missiles to burn through nothingness.

Ten light minutes away the Home Fleet dropped back into real space, Lewis waited patiently as Sheehan and the small staff he’d managed to assemble from whoever Captain Hicks could immediately spare, attempted work out a series of jumps. With orders issued, Lewis could only wait. He found himself sharing space against the bridge’s rear bulkhead with the embedded journalist.

“Jeff Harlow of…”

“I don’t care,” Lewis cut him off.

Jeff wilted, but only for a moment.

“How will this help? I mean, anywhere we jump they can follow.”

“They can eventually follow,” Lewis said in spite of himself. “But those FTL sensors of theirs are only good for a few light seconds and a solar system is much, much larger. Unless we jump in close to one of their ships, it takes time and fuel to regain contact with us.” The space immediately around the fleet remained free of any Nameless. “Just give us enough time to work this out,” Lewis murmured to himself, almost completely forgetting the presence of the journalist.

It took the Nameless nearly an hour to find them again. An hour for Lewis to reorganise what was left of his fleet and an hour to listen to Nameless FTL transmissions. The coms section on board
Freyia
lacked some of the facilities on
Warspite
, but their direction finding was enough to confirm the Nameless were spreading out. At least some ships had jumped as close to the edge of the solar system as their drives could manage, which in turn was as close to the Home Fleet’s support ships as they could reach, presumably trying to see whether their enemy had retreated there.

They also heard distant signals from the Nameless home worlds. Was there an element of hope in those transmissions? If so, it was crushed when the Nameless scout jumped in two hundred thousand kilometres from the fleet and, by pure good fortune, within a few thousand kilometres of a pair of screening fighters. It got the word out but was obliterated moments later. By the time Nameless cruisers began dropping in around the Home Fleet’s reported position, the humans weren’t there anymore.

17th May

For two days it continued. The Home Fleet made dozens of jumps, from one side of the system to the other and all the while the Nameless flailed after them – always one step behind. The drives of some ships struggled to keep up the pace but now there was the opportunity to send them back to the support fleet for repairs. Even as they left, other ships, hastily repaired, started to trickle back.
Warspite
arrived at the end of the sixteenth followed, to everyone’s surprise, by the cruiser
Deimos
with a scratch crew under the command of a fighter pilot. Others continued to join them and the fighting strength of the Home Fleet slowly grew.

The Nameless tried scattering scouts and escorts across the system to find their elusive target. These isolated and vulnerable ships were easy meat for even the small number of human fighters that remained. Ship after ship was burned down and when the Nameless did make contact with the Home Fleet, it was piecemeal, not the hammer blow they required. All the while, Lewis could feel the advantage shift as the Nameless lost momentum.

“The burning question is what will they do when they reach the point where, if they don’t leave, they won’t have the fuel to make it across the Rift,” Lewis mused out loud. “The point where they have to commit to one course of action or the other, with no ability to change midstream.”

“There’s no saying that point hasn’t already been reached, sir,” Hicks replied. “They may well have decided to commit to forcing us out to the last. Those ships could sit dead in the water for a while if they knew tankers were inbound. If they can force us out, then they only need one ship with enough juice to run the beacon for a few hours.”

In the background Lewis could hear the journalist taking notes, his presence just about tolerated.

“Fair point, Captain,” Lewis replied. “The Phantom task group confirmed that Nameless ships are waiting for an opportunity to jump the Rift.”

“A beacon has to stay on for six hours. That’s a long window,” Sheehan said. “
Deimos
’s skipper reports that they blundered into a squadron and she hit a tanker on the way out.”

“I’m not sure how much confidence we can put in that report,” Hicks replied. “
Deimos
is pretty beat up and the new skipper is beyond green.”

“There are two reasons they would risk bring a tanker into the combat zone,” Lewis said. “They had us on the ropes a couple of days ago, so it might have felt safe. Alternatively, it could be they didn’t have the resources any more to play safe and send ships back out of the combat zone to resupply. We simply have no way of knowing. No gentlemen, for the moment we keep jumping the fleet and avoiding contact. However, we will deploy our reconnaissance and fighter elements wider. If we can catch a section of their fleet resupplying outside a mass shadow, then we might be able to land the knockout blow.”

___________________________

19th May

Alanna didn’t respond at the first insistent shake. The second was a good deal less hesitant. With a groan, she returned to consciousness.

“Skipper, the officer of the watch is asking for you,” said a petty officer. “Something’s going down.”

As she made her way back towards the Damage Control station, the signs of hurried repairs were everywhere. Here and there lumps of sealing foam dotted the bulkheads, sufficiently closing off breaches so that the ship could at least hold atmosphere. Bits of broken cables drifted like seaweed, while other pieces hastily spliced back together and duct taped out of the way were visible everywhere. The whole ship was held together by tape and hope – and she was still in command.

When they’d been out beyond the heliopause with the supply fleet, she’d been promised that a new commander would be arriving shortly. The crew they put off the ship had mostly returned. The few remaining junior officers filled dead men’s boots, but no one arrived to relieve her and when
Warspite
lumbered back towards the figurative sound of gunfire, she knew
Deimos
had to follow. They’d patched the ship up enough to fly, but weapons control was a wreck. However, Coms had somehow avoided damage and they’d paired off with the badly damaged destroyer
Voulgiers
. She didn’t have a working gun left in her but her weapons control was still functional and the two ships could function together in a brains and brawn arrangement.

“What is it, Lieutenant Dolezal?” she asked as she pulled herself into the command centre.

“Skipper, we’re getting something odd from coms,” he said.

If you have woken me for ‘odd’ then prepare to die
. Alanna suppressed the urge to say it as she pulled herself over to the communications display. The urge to punch Dolezal disappeared the moment she saw the screen.

“Twenty-one FTL transmissions…”

“Now twenty-two,” interrupted the rating at the display.

They were dotted all over the system and as Alanna watched, another two appeared.

“All hands to battle stations,” she said before pushing off towards her command chair.

___________________________

“It’s levelling out at thirty-four signals, sir,” Sheehan said as he leaned over the shoulder of the communications rating. “The signals are consistent with the navigation beacon from the gate station.”

“Show me,” Lewis said as he buckled himself in.

Action stations hadn’t been ordered for the fleet, but crewmembers were already rushing onto
Freyia
’s bridge and struggling into survival suits. On the main holo, the blips for individual ships were lighting up as they reported as ready for action. It wasn’t just him. The fleet could feel it too. The Worms were making their last move. The holo zoomed out to display the entire system. Thirty-four signals were pulsing out.

“Are all of those signals the same?” Lewis asked.

“Yes, sir,” Sheehan replied after a moment. “All the same frequency, all the same strength.”

“What are your orders, sir?” Hicks asked.

In his mind’s eye Lewis could see the situation of his opposite number. Their fuel status had hit critical. Their salvation was only six hours of flight time away but with no mass shadows to hide in, any ship transmitting a beacon might as well paint a bull’s-eye on its hull.

So the Nameless were returning to the game they had played so many times before: the numbers game. The Home Fleet would catch and destroy ship after ship but with enough alien ships transmitting together, they could maintain their signal for the required six hours. But somewhere out there, there was a point, perhaps even a powered down gate, where the relief force would arrive. If the Nameless could make jump in, then after a very short time they could jump away again. If there was a gate, then dozens of the expendable gateships could solve their supply problem.

“Start a countdown for six hours,” Lewis ordered. “Instruct all fighters to land and rearm for anti-ship strikes. The central core of the fleet will remain here. Light units will be dispersed in squadrons to strike at enemy beacons. Either run them off or destroy them. Work from the outer edges of the system and move inwards.”

“What if they run into heavy opposition?” Hicks asked.

“Then we follow in with the main fleet.” Lewis replied.

___________________________

The signal from the Nameless scout ceased abruptly as a squadron of destroyers, with
Deimos
and
Voulgiers
in support, jumped in less than seventy thousand kilometres away. The alien ship salvoed off its missiles before it turned to run.

“We have hook up to
Voulgiers
,” Dolezal reported. “We’re firing, Skipper!”

“So I can see, Lieutenant,” Alanna said absently as she gazed at the screen.

The handful of missiles stood no chance and died as they hit the effective range of flak guns. By the time they did, the scout was already dead as a hail of plasma bolts from the destroyers ripped it open and sent the wreckage tumbling away.

“Signal from the
Cuman
, moving onto next target.”

“Acknowledge it. Helm, stay on station,” Alanna replied before glancing at Dolezal. “That’s us two for three,” she remarked as the rising whine of the jump drive spinning back up rose from the bows.

___________________________

On
Freyia
’s main holo, Lewis could follow the progress of the ships ranging out from the fleet, albeit not directly. With combat breaking out all over the system, the signals to radar and passive arrays were minutes and sometimes hours out of date. But each time one of the outlying beacons was snuffed out he knew that contact had been made. Those signals from the outer edges of the system were being silenced faster than they could be replaced. It was now three hours since the first beacon went active and the Nameless had lost six ships without reply.