The Nameless War

by Edmond Barrett

  THE NAMELESS WAR

  By Edmond Barrett

  Book one of the Nameless War Trilogy

  THE NAMELESS WAR

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental

  Copyright © 2011 Edmond Barrett

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Cover art by Edmond Barrett, background image used is NASA file 482400main_iss024e013819_full, the book is in no way endorsed by NASA.

  With thanks to my parents for their support, Phil, for his abusive texts messages during the editing and proofreading stages and Ray Hammill for his extremely generous help with 2nd edition.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Book Two of the Nameless War Trilogy:

  Chapter One

  The Mississippi Incident

  Date: 12th August 2065

  Vessel: Mississippi, River Class Light Cruiser (seconded to Science Directorate)

  Location: System A046-026

  Mission: Exploration, Sampling and Stella cartography

  The Mississippi’s four plasma engines slowly pushed the ship away from the third planet of the system, driving the ship far enough away from the planet to allow the Jump drive to be safely engaged. Starlight glinted from the gunmetal grey hull, of the two hundred meter long vessel. The ship had all the usual features of a Human warship, the pointed ‘ram bow’, a slab sided armoured hull with a centrifuge buried within, turrets of the plasma cannons and missile launchers mounted above and below the hull and the four wings with the thrusters mounted on the tips.

  In his small cabin Captain Ronan Crowe was lounging comfortably in his chair, reading a report from the ship’s purser. A short stocky man in his mid forties, Crowe was far from what most people would expect a fleet captain to look like. A native of New Zealand, years in space, under artificial light had given him a pale complexion, while his tightly cropped hair was already both receding and greying.

  On his belt the communicator started to buzz urgently. Without interrupting his reading he put his earpiece into place, before reaching down and flicking the switch.

  "Crowe here."

  "Officer of the Watch, sir. We’re picking up an odd contact on radar. Five light seconds out on a convergent course."

  Crowe stopped reading and looked towards to forward bulkhead as if he could see through the metal to the bridge. Five light seconds was close by space standards.

  "You’re certain it’s not natural or one of ours?" he asked.

  "Definitely not natural, sir. We’ve already observed a slight course correction; there is no sign of a transponder or an IFF return which makes any of ours unlikely. Although it’s hard to say for sure at this range, it looks pretty small for a Jump capable vessel." Came the reply, “Big enough for a drone though.”

  "On my way up."

  Two steps took Crowe out the door of his cabin. Quickly he made his way down the narrow corridor towards the bridge. Set into the bulkheads on either side were ratings’ bunks, from some of these came gentle snores, members of the off duty shift. Commander Berg, Mississippi’s second in command, was standing on the starboard side of the bridge examining the main radar display. Seeing her superior out of the corner of her eye, she straightened and turned to face him. Of Turkish descent but a native of Bremen, the commander was likely on her final tour with Crowe. With two years aboard the ship and excellent appraisals, she would in all likelihood soon be offered her own ship.

  "All right Carol, what have you got for me?" Crowe asked as he pulled on his jacket.

  "This, Captain." Berg replied turning back to the radar screen. "We picked it up about four minutes ago at a range of just over the five light seconds mark. We initially thought it was an asteroid; then it made a course correction towards us. Passive sensors aren’t sure yet, but they think they may be picking up signs of engines on standby. It’s already travelling at three times our velocity."

  "Any idea on size?"

  Berg looked down at the sensor operator.

  "Phillips?" She prompted.

  "I think somewhere in the region of shuttle sized, sir. Fifteen to twenty meters perhaps? It’s now coming up at four and a half lights seconds, sir." Phillips responded without taking his eye off the screen.

  "If manned that’s only just big enough for an in-system jump drive, way too small for a full interstellar capable vessel," Crowe muttered, "and there’s no reason why an in-system ship would be running around this far out without a mother ship."

  "Going at a fairly serious velocity too." Berg added. "We’re not picking up anything else from it, no radio, radar or FTL signals. I wonder how the hell they’re even seeing where they’re going."

  Crowe watched the blip on the screen for a few moments. Then he reached down to his belt and flicked onto the main ship intercom channel.

  "All hands, this is the captain. Suit up and close on stations; repeat close on stations. Professor Rey, and Mr. Copland to the bridge."

  Around the bridge all the personnel were pulling on their own suits with a speed that came from regular drills. The survival suits allowed a ship to decompress most sections before action. This drastically reduced the chances of secondary explosions and fire, allowed damage control teams to move around without having to work their way through multiple airlocks. They also gave a crewman at least some chance if the hull was opened up in their section.

  "Do you intend to stay here skipper, or move to the conning tower?" Berg asked as she instinctively ran her fingers down the seals on her suit. Although the conning tower was one of the most heavily armoured points on the ship, the whole concept of a conning tower on a cruiser was pretty outdated. Modern cruisers were burying their battle bridges deep inside the hull. The day bridge was inside the centrifuge, which meant it had gravity however, if the ship started getting thrown around by weapon hits or wild manoeuvring, the spikes and troughs in the artificial gravity could be wildly disorientating.

  "Not until we know what we’re looking at; retain pressure in the centrifuge, de-pressurise the rest."

  Berg nodded and pressed a red button on a console, a mournful siren echoed through the ship. As she did she glanced across the lighted board showing the various ship chambers, all glowed a steady green.

  "All sections report closed up for action, sir." She reported

  The aft hatch clanged open and Professor Rey and Alfred Copland hurried though, slamming it closed behind them. Both were carrying rather than wearing their survival suits, a sight that caused Crowe to stifle a sigh. Deep space exploration might be the reason he joined the fleet, but he frequently found it bloody irritating to have to deal with civilians who sometimes displayed all the survival instincts of a depressed lemming.

  "How can I help?" Alfred asked as he started to struggle into his suit.

  "We have something approaching us on a convergent course. We’ve observed a course correction so natural phenomenon seems unlikely." Crowe told him.

  "So a ship?"

  "That is one possibility."

  "That’s very little to work on captain. What do you expect us to tell you?" Professor Rey replied unhelpfully.

  "I e
xpect you to put your suit on and be ready to offer an opinion when I ask for it." Crowe told him firmly before turning back to his holo display.

  "Captain, target is now coming up at the limits of our cameras." One of the sensor operators called out. Crowe nodded towards him and the main holographic display but, whereas the others looked at the image of the approaching object Crowe’s eye flicked towards a small group of figures being projected in one corner of the display, they read ‘COMPUTER ENHANCEMENT 50%’. The screen image wasn’t much more than a best guess, as the computer attempted to fill in the parts the powerful cameras still couldn’t make out. What they could see however answered some questions. The object was definitely something constructed; it also bore no resemblance to the design style of the other three known space faring races. The computer enhancement figure started to slowly count down as the object approached.

  "Curious," Professor Rey commented looking interested for the first time. "It doesn’t appear to correspond to anyone’s design philosophies. You know, this may well be someone totally new."

  "Captain, we should back off.” Copland said in a sharp voice, “We’re not equipped for a first contact situation; I strongly advise we leave this system at the earliest time possible. We need a diplomatic ship, not a warship. The regulations are very clear in this area." The part time diplomat looked around defiantly as if expecting someone to leap up and start debating the matter with him. Crowe suppressed the strong urge to frown at him. There was definitely something about the man that rubbed most people up the wrong way. But it didn’t mean he was wrong. After the disaster at First Contact, it had been decided that in the future such situations would, wherever possible, be handled by specially formed diplomatic missions. Although the professionals hadn’t done all that well with the early contacts with some of the Tample star nations, and in the end a more robust action ended up being taken.

  "I know the regulations Mister Copland, thank you for your contribution.” Crowe replied flatly before turning to one of his officers. "Navigator, how long till we cross the red line and can jump out of here?"

  "At present velocity, sir we will exit the planetary mass shadow in just under two hours."

  The unbreakable nature of the light speed barrier meant that for a ship to cross interstellar distance in realspace would take decades, centuries or even eons, depending on the intended destination. Jump drives offered a means of travel that would get a ship to its destination in a more practical time frame. When activated the drive would form a conduit from one point in the galaxy to another that the ship then travelled along. These linkages greatly compressed the distance between the two points and while the ships actual velocity remained low, the relative velocity was many times that of light. Thus Einstein was neatly sidestepped and starships could cross interstellar space in days rather than decades.

  The system did, however, have certain limitations: the most significant being that no ship could enter or leave jump space while inside the gravitational effect known as the mass shadow. Caused by planets or even large asteroids, its size or depth was directly proportionate to the mass of the planetary body generating it. The planet Mississippi had been surveying was a third larger than Earth and its mass shadow correspondingly deeper. Which meant the ship was still a long way from being able to make its jump.

  "Can we avoid the contact getting within a light second of us?"

  The navigator tapped in a series of commands, on his screen the computer flicked through their possibilities, after a moment he shook his head.

  "Negative, sir, the contact has too much velocity on us, assuming it adjusts its course to match." He replied

  "Okay let’s see if we can test that assumption and see how determined it is to intercept. Helm, increase engines to one hundred percent normal, navigator give an adjusted course to the edge of the mass shadow."

  "Adjusted course laid in, going to one hundred percent normal in five, four, three, two, one, firing." Everyone on the bridge automatically leaned forward to keep their balance as the deck shuddered beneath them.

  There was a pause of several seconds while they waited for to see what the contact’s response was.

  "Captain! Radar contact is adjusting course to match."

  "Passive sensors, contact has just activated plasma based engines."

  "Plotting, contact is still on an intercept course. Time to intercept thirteen minutes."

  Crowe cursed quietly under his breath.

  "Navigator?"

  "New time to safe distance from planet is one hour twenty seven minutes."

  "How the hell did it adjust so quickly?" Berg muttered, "That thing made a course correction immediately, but it takes several seconds to get any sort of radar return."

  It took Crowe a moment to take in what his first officer had said. Radar, like everything else on the electromagnetic spectrum, travelled through vacuum at light speed. That meant it had taken over four seconds for their radar beam to reach the contact and another four seconds for the reflection to return, so they only saw the course correction nearly nine seconds after it had been made. But the contact had adjusted to their increase in acceleration instantly, rather than with a nine second lag there should have been.

  "My word! That’s impressive." Professor Rey commented from where he was standing at the rear of the bridge. Crowe and Berg exchanged looks of concern.

  "Professor. Any idea how they’re doing that?" Crowe asked quietly.

  "Gravitation perhaps?” Rey replied after a moment of thought, “But to pick up something as small as a ship, that’s impressive. Whoever they are they’re clearly highly advanced, who knows what else they can do."

  Yes, who knows? Crowe thought to himself. If there was one thing he didn’t want to have to do it was make first contact with a superior ship. He’d much rather it was something too feeble to be tempted to take a crack at Mississippi.

  "So they’re technologically ahead of us." Berg said quietly.

  "Well, not necessarily, Commander. They may be ahead of us in scanning technology but it isn’t a given that superiority is across the board." Rey gave a shrug. “we’ll only know that when we get a closer look."

  "Yes, interesting. But currently not something we would choose." Crowe turned to Copland. "All right it looks like avoidance isn’t a runner; we’re going to make contact whether we want to or not, time to brush up on your diplomatic skills." Copland started to go pale.

  "Cap- Cap- Captain we have to avoid contact. W-we can’t make contact." The diplomat stuttered.

  "That doesn’t appear to be our choice any more. We could turn our engines into molten metal and we still wouldn’t pull away." Crowe flicked on his intercom. "Radio room, start transmitting the standard greeting message with a secondary language stream. Let’s see where that takes us."

  "Confirmed Captain, now transmitting. Earliest time to reply is nine seconds."

  Crowe forced himself to sit down. Transmission lags were one of the biggest irritants of deep space work. But there wasn’t much you could do about it, FTL transmitters were simply too big to put into anything but a dedicated hull and EMDs, Emergency Message Drones, were only useful for calling for help across interstellar distances.

  "Just have to hope we can make some sense of what they say." Berg murmured. "Our diplomat is looking a little pale."

  "Bridge, Radio room, reply possible any time from now." squawked the intercom.

  "Sensors, any change of contacts profile?" Crowe called out.

  "Negative, sir, still nothing but static on any radio frequency."

  "Hmm," Berg started, "If this is a truly new alien species, then they possibly could be using some system that can’t send or receive radio."

  "But everyone still uses radio. Everyone." Copland objected. "Even the Aèllr."

  "In the case of a new race that does not mean anything, they could have discovered something better." Crowe replied.

  "It might also explain why they’re not using any sort of radar." Rey
added. "They might be operating on something completely different."

  "Sensors, time to intercept?" Crowe called out

  "Eleven minutes to course convergence, sir."

  "We could try putting a communications laser onto their hull, see if that gets a response from them." Professor Rey suggested.

  "That could be taken as a hostile action." Copland said nervously.

  Crowe nodded slowly as he considered it. "Almost anything could be taken as hostile Mister Copland, but unless their hull is made out of tinfoil a coms laser isn’t even going to mark the paint. Try one pulse per second, see where that takes us."

  Another two minutes crawled past without any response from the approaching contact.

  "I wonder could it be some sort of deep space probe." Professor Rey finally broke the silence "Maybe we’ve got completely the wrong end of stick."

  "What do you mean?" Berg asked.

  "Well maybe instead of being advanced, it’s actually primitive. Perhaps this was launched from another star system. Ships have after all been reporting picking up distant radio transmissions from an unknown source for a couple of years now. This vessel could have spent centuries crossing interstellar space."

  "Any probe would have only limited fuel or reaction mass. This would have to have made some big course corrections to intercept us." Berg replied dubiously. "Seems a bit unlikely for something designed to make a realspace passage across interstellar space would also be programmed to chase after starships."

  The image on the main display was getting much clearer. The approaching object was made up of flat angular surfaces, with almost no distinguishing marks, no view ports or anything else. There was what looked like a radar dish set into the nose of the object, and a pod of some sort protruding from one side of the upper surface.

  Crowe drummed his fingers against the armrest of his chair. He was starting to get seriously worried. This… thing was coming barrelling towards them at a hell of a speed without giving any indication as to its intentions. What most people didn’t realise was that ‘alien’ didn’t simply mean humans who happened to be little green men, it meant everything, physiology, history, language and culture. Making a high speed run straight at someone might well be an alien’s idea of a friendly hello. On the other hand it could be an attack. Either way he had to make a decision within the next few seconds, the kind of decision that no amount of training or experience could prepare you for. Crowe could feel his flesh crawl. Well that was what they paid him the big bucks for.