“I was there sir,” Alanna replied.
Dati looked at her sharply. Then, realising who he was talking to, he turned away.
“More than half of us didn’t come back and that was when the Nameless didn’t have fighters or know how to fight them,” Alanna reminded him.
“Well they do now. They activated their FTL jammers a short while ago. The last transmission we got from Earth was that Nameless support ships had been observed jumping in and delivering new fighters. Next time, we’ll have to go in the under strength until Earth can get replacements to us.”
“Lieutenant Shermer. I’m ready for you now.”
It was the intelligence officer. As Alanna got up to follow him to the hatch, Dati called after her.
“Good work, Lieutenant, you did well with your flight. Pity it didn’t amount to anything.”
Chapter Seven
Tightening of the Noose
25th December 2067
Crowe instinctively ducked under the hatchway as he made his way up to the bridge and walked into the paper streamer that was unexpectedly hanging in the way. Made from cut-up paper manuals, it wasn’t the most colourful of decorations, while the next one manufactured from lengths of platted coloured wires was even less festive. But for the moment they added some much needed cheer to the grey confines of the crew quarters, even if engineering would in due course have to recover and return them to stores.
“Whoops, sorry sir,” a petty officer apologised as Crowe attempted to disentangle himself without ripping the streamer. “I’ll tighten that up a bit.”
“And Merry Christmas, sir,” he added, as he lifted it out of Crowe’s way.
“And you PO? Have you eaten yet?” Crowe asked.
“No sir,” the petty officer said with a shake of his head. “Looking forward to my first ever Christmas dinner.”
“Well don’t let me hold you, the Cook has done well.”
“Thank you, sir,”
The petty officer was a native of the Indian sub-continent and, if Crowe remembered his file correctly, it listed him as a Hindu. By its nature the fleet had always been a multinational and multicultural organisation. In the early days that had been something of a challenge, but at the same time, this aspect offered some significant advantages in terms of the day-to-day operations. With most ships having at least a sizeable minority of non-Christians, it was possible to give most of Christmas Day off to those who were. In turn, the important days of other religious groups and cultures could be given their days with little difficulty.
On board Deimos this Christmas was different, with a palpable desire by the crew to celebrate something – anything. The ship’s Christian contingent had extended the season’s greetings and invited the rest of the crew to Christmas dinner. Even if quite a few of them were a bit vague as to what was involved, there had been few refusals and the crew had thrown themselves into decorating the ship with whatever they could lay their hands on. Somehow, the ship’s purser had managed to get hold of some real turkey meat before they left. Despite the fact, because there were so many mouths to feed, no one would get more than a taste of the big bird, the day had definitely lightened the mood.
God knows they needed it. The arrival of the Nameless fleet dropping into the system had been a hard blow. Watching the fighters and strike boats throw themselves into the fight, only to recoil as their enemy gave as good as they got, was harder still. Crowe still considered himself to be at heart an explorer rather than a fighting officer, but still, not to steer towards the metaphorical sound of gunfire felt like a betrayal. Stepping onto the bridge, Crowe crossed from a world of determined festivity into one of demanding professionalism. Mostly. Someone seemed to have stuck a paper star above the main holo. Commander Bhudraja was sitting in the command chair and rose as soon as he noticed Crowe. The duty watch were all there, leaning over their passive sensor consoles, looking out for anything that might indicate Nameless ships in the vicinity.
There had been a heart-stopping moment a few days earlier when a Nameless scout dropped into real space close to Mars. It actually got inside the orbit of Phobos before jumping away, evidently satisfied nothing of consequence was present. Since then they’d mostly been relying on three discrete passive sensor satellites orbiting the Red Planet, which lasered their readings to a pick-up some distance from the Fast Division’s position on the surface. The dust from their landing was still slowly swirling around with the result that laser connection was occasionally lost for several seconds. But between that and radio transmissions, they stayed well informed.
“Commander, anything to report?”
“No sir,” Bhudraja replied. “We observed the Illustrious’s fighter group put in a strike about an hour ago. The Nameless jumped after that and have yet to reappear. So they’re either far enough away that the first light speed emissions haven’t reached us yet or there is a solar body between us and them.”
“How many fighters?”
“Sensors think about a dozen,” Bhudraja replied. “The Illustrious should have eighteen fighters, so if they dispatched a dozen, then that was all they had to send.”
Crowe glanced towards a display showing outside the ship. The floating dust still blotted out almost everything, but it was very slowly settling, allowing Crowe to just about make out the looming dark presence of Warspite in the distance. Every day they made a status report via laser to the flagship. Every day they received an automatic acknowledgement and nothing more. Did Admiral Lewis know uncertainty? Did he wonder whether the time for the Fast Division to make its move would ever come or worry whether he would recognise the moment? Impossible to know – the Admiral was as inscrutable as a sphinx.
“Do you think, sir,” Bhudraja asked, “we were right to mark Christmas? There was no Christmas out there.”
“We’re not out there,” Crowe replied. “I know what you’re saying, Commander. We’re celebrating while others are fighting and I did wonder about it. But we’re doing what we have to. Our job is the easy one, right up to the moment it suddenly becomes very, very difficult.”
“Yes, sir. I have a few thoughts on keeping the crew busy; after today.”
“Good. We’ll try to use this as productively as we can. We can’t allow people time to over-think this.”
The two of them stood silent for a while.
“I got something called a Brussels sprout on my plate,” Bhudraja commented.
“They’re a bit of an acquired taste.”
“I don’t think I’ll bother.”
12th January 2068
Willis had just pulled herself through the engine room hatch when the main alarm went off. As she swung herself around, she heard Guinness mutter something like ‘here we go again.’
“Bridge, report!” Willis snapped into her intercom as she pulled herself back the way she’d come. Behind, she heard the pitch of the generators change as they spun up to full power.
“Captain, an enemy force has just jumped in – ninety ships. Two carriers, five cap ships and twenty cruisers with escorts and scouts,” the duty officer replied.
“Shit,” Willis muttered half to herself. Ahead, the off-duty engineering shifts came pouring down the passageway.
“Make a hole!” Willis shouted as she accelerated towards them. Ratings pulled themselves towards the sides as Willis shot down the middle. At the reactor room bulkhead, she let out a grunt of pain as she clipped the edge of the hatch.
“Captain, should we bring the Number Two Reactor online?”
Orders had come up from the surface for all ships to minimise fuel expenditure. Black Prince could run, even fight, on one reactor, but it left her dangerously underpowered and exposed to damage or equipment failure. But bringing a cold reactor online was a twenty-minute, fuel intensive process.
“Bring it online,” she confirmed.
“Yes, Captain.”
By the time she reached the bridge, the battle station’s crew had already arrived and changed into their
survival suits. On the status board, sections were rapidly turning green as they reported in as ready for action. Willis tossed her jacket into one corner as she pulled on her own suit.
“Alright, Guns,” she said to the duty officer, “I’ve got this.”
He nodded before heading for the hatch and his own station, nearly colliding at the hatch with Lieutenant Commander Chuichi.
The Commander had his suit on but helmet under his arm.
“They’re not even trying are they,” he said nodding towards the main holo.
“No, they aren’t,” Willis replied, as she sealed up her suit. “Bastards!”
“Bridge, Coms. Orders coming in from Squadron Command.”
“My screen,” she replied.
There was nothing unexpected in the orders from Saladin. Positioned on the right flank of the fleet, they were to sweep forward. There were gaps in the formation that would allow Planetary Defence’s forts to fire through in support. A faint chime came across the intercom command channel as the last section reported it was ready for action.
“Decompress all sections,” Willis ordered before turning to Chuichi, “You’d better head aft, Commander.”
“Yes, Captain,” he replied, before pulling himself to the hatch, back towards his post in Damage Control. There was no haste in his movements. There didn’t need to be, he could predict just as easily as anyone else in the fleet how the next couple of hours would go.
“Helm, bring us to heading one zero three dash zero eight seven and bring engines to forty percent.”
The engines fired and Willis felt herself being pushed back into her seat as Black Prince and the rest of the fleet started to climb up and out of orbit. Ahead, Planetary Defence fighter squadrons led the way, accelerating away from the more sluggish starships.
“Bridge, Sensors. Contact separation, we have incoming.”
On the main holo Willis saw a mass of new contacts appear as the Nameless ships launched a wave of large missiles down into Earth’s gravity well. Black Prince’s computer started to work out whether any were specifically aimed at them. Positioned as they were on the extreme right flank of the combined fleet, they probably weren’t, but assumptions made for corpses. A mass of lines appeared on the screen as the computer extrapolated the course of each missile and established that most were aimed at the centre of the fleet.
“Bridge, Fire Control. Prepare for Fire Plan Baker,” she ordered.
As the approaching missiles crossed through the half light second mark, some began to disappear. The orbital forts were already scoring a few hits with their big laser cannons, but most of the disappearing missiles weren’t being destroyed. They were big mass driver missiles, firing before they reached flak range, each one sending a metal lump weighing several kilograms indiscriminately barrelling towards Earth. With so much else flying about, Black Prince’s radar couldn’t pick them up yet. When the range closed, they would re-acquire and then try to knock a few off course with plasma cannon fire, while the ships in the centre manoeuvred to avoid them. The orbital forts would have to deal with whatever got through. A few made it pass both the fleet and Planetary Defence, but most struck the atmosphere at the wrong angle to make entry. They either burned up or more likely skipped off Earth’s atmosphere. The only one that made it down plunged into the mid North Atlantic, but even that caused flooding of the Western European and Eastern American coasts.
“Contacts entering firing range.”
“Flak guns commence firing.”
In their dorsal and ventral mounts, the two flak guns started to track and fire, eliminating those missiles that entered Black Prince’s defensive zone. Even as the first wave of missiles died, the Nameless launched a second, which went the same way as the first, as did the third. They began to retreat slowly away, staying well under the maximum velocity at they could jump. As the escorts exhausted their supply of cap ship missiles, the weight of successive salvos diminished. The Nameless fighters that had deployed, began to fall back and land on their carriers and then with five minutes to go before the human fighters reached effective missile range, the enemy ships began to jump away.
On her bridge Willis went through the motions, giving the orders that needed to be given for Black Prince to metaphorically march to the top of the hill, then march down again. An hour and a half after the first jump in, Black Prince was back in position, with only diminished fuel and ammunition to show for it.
I could have done the whole damn thing from my bunk, Willis thought to herself when she finally made it off the bridge. Next time maybe she would, she thought only half in jest. Nostalgia was a terrible thing, but she was starting to miss old Hood and more particularly, Dryad Station. She’d been in over her head and stared defeat in the face, but at least she’d been able to make some kind of running. Here she was just one more cog in a giant machine that wasn’t achieving very much. It wasn’t anything anyone could be blamed for, but that didn’t make her feel any less useless. It had been the same for nearly the last three weeks. Every two or three days a sizeable chunk of the Nameless fleet would jump in and put in what amounted to a bombardment. No ships had been lost, but every time the fleet had to react, it had consumed fuel they couldn’t replace. Guinness was standing at the door of her cabin. For a moment Willis wondered why he was there, before remembering that she had wanted to talk to him before the bombardment.
“You have those figures?”
“Yes, Skipper,” he replied offering a pad.
“Twelve percent?” Willis said with dismay as she scanned the list.
“Sorry, Skipper,” Guinness replied, “but yeah, each one of these little jaunts costs us about twelve percent of our fuel.”
“That isn’t even close to the fuel efficiency the book says we should get.”
“The book wasn’t written with our combination of equipment in mind, ma’am,” Guinness said. “We didn’t get a shakedown cruise, so we didn’t get a chance to find the optimum setting either, which isn’t helping. But mostly ma’am, I think whoever signed off those engines as reconditioned, did the fucking bare minimum and figured the job’s a good ’un. Pardon my language.”
They were already getting some pointed messages from both Headquarters and the flagship of the fleet. Guinness was damn a good engineer, but he had his limits.
“If we could get a bit of downtime – proper downtime, then there’s a lot I could do.”
“What’s proper downtime, Chief?” Willis asked.
“Two weeks.”
“Chief, that isn’t even worth asking for,” she replied. “Is there anything you can do while we’re in the line?”
“Section three in the report, Skipper.”
Willis skimmed across it.
“Alright, proceed.” She hesitated as she considered what to say next. “Chief, I want you to take a really close look at Number One Reactor. Make sure it has no problems.”
“Sure, I can do. But it hasn’t…”
“We aren’t bringing Number Two online when the Nameless turn up next. We’ll just have to chance it.”
Guinness’s expression tightened.
“Okay, Skipper, I’ll give it a double check.”
18th January 2068
Alanna climbed wearily out of the cockpit of Dubious and signed over the fighter to the deck crew. She glanced over at the scorch marks on the port wing and shook her head. Schurenhofer didn’t even glance as she pulled herself towards the hatch out of the hangar.
“Skipper, you want me to…” she started to ask.
“No. No point both of us. Just go,” Alanna said, more sharply than she meant to. Schurenhofer looked for a moment, as if she was about to make her own steely reply, but shrugged instead.
As she cleared the airlock Alanna pulled off her helmet and loosened the neck dam. She had maybe three hours before Dubious needed to fly off again. Debrief for this mission, briefing for the next and prep would eat up an hour of that – at least. So how best use the time? Eat, sleep
or wash – pick any two.
“Get anything?”
It took Alanna’s tired brain a moment to realise someone had addressed her. It was Udaltsov, his helmet on but visor up. He looked just as tired as she felt.
“Swing and a miss,” she replied. “They didn’t have fighter cover and jumped away as soon as they saw us.”
Udaltsov shrugged and carried on down the passageway. Conversations had gone that way. No one had the energy for anything beyond the bare minimum. They were three days into a four-day cycle. Dauntless jumped into the system, well clear of any of the planets. After the first day the Nameless hadn’t stood still and let Earth throw its entire fighter force at them. Instead their fleet jumped back and forth across the system, maintaining the siege, without giving the defenders a solid target to aim at. Sometimes a chunk of the fleet would break away and rendezvous with support ships. That need to resupply was potentially their Achilles heel, but the Nameless knew that too. Their supply ships always stayed at least two light hours away from Earth. By the time the fleet sensors detected them, they’d already jumped away to a new position. The three carriers stood more of a chance. Jumping around the system, they could get closer and be subject to shorter light speed lags. Sometimes they were sent out as squadrons, but mostly as individual flights. Something like two out of every five sorties resulted in contact. When that happened, it was short and sharp as the Ravens attempted to knife through the fighter screen to get into range for anti-ship missiles. But the hunt wasn’t just one way. Nameless cruiser squadrons hunted the carriers. They’d come close to making an interception several times and on the last such occasion Dauntless was forced to break for interstellar space, which had at least confirmed the long held suspicion that the Nameless drives were strictly for system to system jumps. Interstellar space was a no-go zone for them.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 10