The Nameless War

by Edmond Barrett

  There was a sudden lurched, as the main engines went hard astern. Anything not bolted down was pitched across the deck, everything else vibrated madly, and across the bridge the crew clung to their consoles. Relative to the Mississippi the alien suddenly rocketed across the cruiser’s stern. Two missiles shot out from the alien and hammered into them.

  "Just lost engine two!" Berg screamed over the din.

  The alien must have realized what they were trying and attempted to put their ship into a relative dive, however Mississippi’s helmsman rolled the cruiser without waiting for Crowe’s order. For barely two seconds the alien crossed into an area covered by one of the laser designators. The low powered laser speared out painting the target and a Long Lance missile blasted out of the turret. The alien tried to intercept the missile with one of its own but the range/response time was too short, their missile bursting harmlessly behind. The Long Lance punched into one of the alien’s side mounted tanks. For a long moment nothing happen.

  Then there was a sudden blinding flash as the tank - a fuel tank - went up. The vacuum of space snuffed out the fire almost immediately, and revealed the damage. Almost the entire port side of the alien ship had been ripped open, exposing the decks and chambers. Atmosphere and fragments of shattered hull tumbled away from the terrible wound. Slowly, and almost gracefully the mutilated alien spiralled away. Silent.

  D turret was still turning to bear so there was no final shot. One moment fighting for their lives, the next watching their defeated enemy reel away. Crowe suddenly became aware of just how much adrenaline must have been pumping through his veins as his hands started to shake like an old man’s.

  "Damage report." Crowe whispered.

  There was a pause as Berg listened to her frequency.

  "Chief says engine two has taken damage to its control surfaces. He can give you one-quarter power ahead or half power astern. The missile turret has jammed again. D turret reports fractures in their plasma lines, they can still fire but recharge between shots is going to be at least five minutes. Two thirds of the starboard side manoeuvring thrusters appear to have burnt out." Berg reported as she came over to him.

  "I just hope to god they’ve had enough." Crowe muttered. "Because we certainly have."

  "Captain, the alien starting to regain control." One the sensor operators reported.

  Slowly, over the course of ten minutes, the alien pulled itself out of the slow tumble.

  "Fire Control, Bridge. Captain, what are your instructions? "

  "Wait for the order." Crowe replied. "Let’s see what they do."

  Mississippi hovered close by, her one remaining gun tracking the alien.

  Slowly the alien ship started to limp away from them.

  "Skipper, they have a stutter in their remaining engine, I’m reading several major radiation leaks and significant atmosphere bleeds." A sensor operator reported. "I don’t think they’re going to get very far, sir."

  "Now what the hell do we do Commander?" Crowe asked. It all seemed a little surreal. After hours of tension and with their ship damn near coming apart at the seams, they had the alien at their mercy. "That ship is a hulk, if we leave them we probably condemn their crew to death."

  Berg gave her commander a worried look.

  "I hope to god, sir, you’re not planning to board them." She said. "I strongly recommend, sir that we retreat."

  "I know Carol, I know. I just wonder whether we can salvage this."

  "We’ve got only one sort of working gun. Sir, we’re in no condition to dictate terms."

  "I know commander."

  Crowe stared at the image of the shattered vessel. Up to now there had been no time to think only to react. Only now could he think and try to find a way to make this… better. But he couldn’t see a way instead, thoughts kept returning to his crew. If he’d only given orders better or faster then perhaps a dozen men and women would still be alive.

  "Bridge, radio room!" The intercom squawked out. "Contact is transmitting on a FTL frequency!"

  "What’s it saying?"

  "Nothing we can make sense of skipper."

  "Bridge to fire control. Knock out that transmitter!" Crowe ordered.

  "Captain! This could be an attempt at dialog." Professor Rey objected.

  "Or it could be an attempt to call up reinforcements." Crowe snapped back.

  "Fire control to bridge. We can’t identify the position of the FTL on the alien ship. Err… its just stopped, sir."

  "Right, we’re out of here!" Crowe muttered. "Navigator, plot best course to edge of mass shadow. We are not hanging around to find out what they’re calling up!"

  "Captain, we can’t abandon survivors!" Rey objected. "The diplomatic situation might be recoverable and we could learn a lot from that ship."

  "They’ve been able to signal they’re in trouble, we can’t and we’re in no condition to take on reinforcements."

  "Course to edge of mass shadow plotted Captain."

  "Transmit to helm; helm lay in that course as soon as you have it." Crowe ordered.

  "Captain, the contacts engines have shut down. They’re drifting."

  "Perhaps if any of the shuttles are still working we could board?" Rey persisted.

  "Professor the answer is…"

  A flash from the holo lit up the bridge for a moment before the display cut out. Screens around the bridge also shut down for a moment as the pulse hit them before restarting themselves.

  "Contact has exploded, Sir!" A sensor operator shouted. "Explosion profile consistent with fusion reactor breach."

  "Escape pods?"

  "Negative. There’s no sign of any escape pods."

  Fusion reactors were pretty stable beasts. If they went wrong they generally just shut down. The only way to get them to explode would be if the reactors core were literally ripped open while running. But Mississippi hadn’t fired for several minutes. That left only one possibly.

  "They self destructed." Berg said in a hushed voice. "There must have been some of them alive but they blew themselves away."

  “Helm, get us on course.” Crowe ordered. As Mississippi’s bows turned towards Earth he added quietly, “We need to tell everyone what we have started.”

  Chapter Two

  Cause and Consequence

  28th September 2065

  "Did we get any reason for the meeting reschedule?" Paul Lewis, asked as he shrugged on his jacket.

  “None was given, sir.” Sheehan replied as he passed the Admiral his cap. “I believe it might have been at the request of the US State Department.”

  “Thank you. I take it that scandal in Washington still rumbling on?”

  “It certainly is.” The staff officer continued, “He is considered to be a key ally to the President so obviously…” Sheehan shrugged.

  “We get bumped because some senator can’t keep his trousers on.” The Admiral replied dryly, “Good to know that people have their priorities straight.” As Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet, the dour Englishman was the officer most directly responsible for the defence of humanity’s home world, a role that brought him into more contact with politics than he entirely preferred. Which made the monitoring of those political factors an unofficial part of his chief of staff’s job.

  "Is the shuttle…"

  "Already being prepped, sir."

  "I assume you’ve already shuffled the rest of today’s timetable."

  "Pretty much, sir. I’m just waiting for Rear Admiral Brian’s staff to get back to me."

  "Good, and how are preparations for our transfer to Resolution coming?"

  "Everything is on schedule, sir." Sheehan made a slight face. Lewis’s peripheral vision was excellent and he caught the expression.

  "Problem?"

  "I’m just not really looking forward to being shoehorned into Resolution, sir. I just hope our new home is commissioned on time."

  The Admiral smiled briefly, "Yet the Resolutions seemed so big when they first came into service."
Lewis commented as he checked his watch. "Time to make a move. Oh and can you arrange an uplink to my wife’s office. Lunch is going to have to be rescheduled as well."

  Ten minutes later a shuttle detached from the flank of the battleship Titan and started to drop down out of high orbit. Within moments the shuttle was lost among the starships, shuttles and stations crowding Earth’s orbit.

  ________________

  The headquarters of Battlefleet was a collection of large ugly concrete buildings situated to the north of Dublin. Locally nicknamed The Fortress, it had been built as a temporary home for the fleet during The Contact War. Intermittently it was proposed that the fleet move to a new purpose built home, or at least a set of buildings that didn’t look like it was designed withstand an orbital strike. But each proposal bogged down in committees and instead new extensions were added. As his car drove in through the main gates, passing the saluting marine, Admiral Cody Wingate, the most senior military officer of the fleet, doubted it ever would move.

  As the car turned the light shifted and for a moment he saw the reflection of his face in the glass. It was funny how even after thirty years and a dozen plus operations it could still take him by surprise: an African American man now in his mid sixties, average height and slightly overweight. A far cry from the mental picture he had of himself which had frozen in his late twenties. As the car stopped he fumbled for a moment with the handle before getting it. Somehow Wingate found that he missed the fingers of his left hand far less than he missed his face.

  His staff captain, Anna Barker was already waiting for him when he reached his office.

  "Good morning, sir. Did you get my message?" She asked as he walked into the room. Wingate paused in the act of tossing his briefcase into a chair.

  "What message Anna?"

  "The council has moved this morning’s meeting forward an hour; to accommodate the Chinese premier."

  Wingate sighed.

  "I wish someone would accommodate us for a change. Has it been passed up to Titan?"

  "Yes, sir. Secretary Callahan however, is out of his office and seems to have his phone off. I’ve left a message but I have no idea whether he’s received it."

  "If we’ve done what we can it’s not our problem Anna, he’s our oversight not vice-versa."

  Wingate turned slightly as the door of the conference room opened and Lewis stepped into the room looking in poorer humour than usual.

  "Sir." He murmured as he sat down.

  "I thought you were going to miss this." Wingate commented.

  "Orbital control is all screwed up again." Lewis replied in an irritable tone that suggested that someone was going get it in the neck later.

  Behind him officers and various civilian support staff were filing into the room.

  "You’ve seen the meeting plan?"

  "I think you’re asking whether I’ve seen that we’re being blamed for doing what we were told?" Lewis replied with a ghost of a smile. "Yes I have. The words ‘after the horse has bolted’ spring to mind."

  "Unfortunately it’s more serious than that Paul."

  "With politicians it usually is."

  "It plays into the hands of those whom continue to believe the fleet is inherently trigger-happy." Wingate shrugged. "We’ll have to try to stop them from going off at a tangent about armed explorers."

  "With respect, sir but I have yet to see one of these meetings where someone doesn’t attempt to send it off in some strange direction." Lewis looked around. "Where’s Secretary Callahan?"

  "He doesn’t seem to have got the message about the change in time."

  "Well that’s something." Lewis grunted.

  The C in C and the Fleet’s civilian head at the best of time only really tolerated each other. Lewis’s record in the last war had got him as far as his current role, but his unwillingness to play the political game would see him go no further. Wingate had often reflected that it was probably just as well that Lewis seemed to have no such ambitions.

  Battlefleet was in many respects a political and military aberration, a fleet not answerable to any single government. In essence a formalised mercenary force. Due to some questionable wording in the original treaty that founded Battlefleet, the roles of First Admiral and Secretary of the Fleet overlapped somewhat. Some previous First Admirals and Fleet Secretaries had waged near war over the all important definition of what constituted operational details. But Wingate had found Callahan more of an ally than an opponent; a shrewd operator who saw his role as a bridge between the military officers and the civilian government they answered to.

  There was a chime from the ceiling and a voice said. "Ladies and gentlemen can you please take your places." There was a short pause as people found their chairs. "Ladies and gentlemen please rise for the council."

  As people got to their feet the eight hologram pads on the opposite side of the table started to shimmer into life and take form. In the centre sat the hologram of President of the United States, to her left were the Prime Ministers of China, India, New Zealand and South Africa and to her right those of Canada, the UK and Italy.

  "Thank you everyone if we could get started." President Ruth Clifton said briskly. "We’re here primarily to discuss the incident that took place on the 12th August 2065 in the system tentatively identified as A046-026. As you all know a Battlefleet vessel, the Mississippi, on a routine exploration mission was fired upon and severely damaged. The Mississippi returned fire resulting in the complete destruction of an alien vessel of unknown origin. We are here to discuss our response to this incident."

  "Our response must be the complete and immediate withdrawal of all armed vessels from exploration duties. The policy of supplementing Science Directorate vessels with armed explorers always ran the risk of just such an incident. Now possibly our worst fears have come to pass." said Faisal Farooqui, the Indian Prime Minister firmly.

  "With respect Mr Prime Minister, but that is not the immediate issue."

  "I must disagree Admiral. Sending armed vessels into sovereign territory is virtually guaranteed to provoke an alien race. To continue sending ships in that direction risks further antagonising them and risking war."

  "With respect, sir, that is an assumption." Lewis answered him sharply. Wingate shot his subordinate an irritated look, the answer came across far too defensive.

  "A reasonable assumption based on the actions of a Battlefleet officer. A Battlefleet ship encountered a ship of an unknown race and destroyed it. What more is there to say?"

  "Again with respect, sir." Wingate interrupted. "The logs and witness accounts show that Captain Crowe held his fire until he was certain he was under attack. He then made all reasonable attempts to extract his ship without getting into further conflict."

  "When he encountered the alien ship directly, he made no attempt to communicate. His own logs admit this." Farooqui countered.

  "Admit is a strong term Prime Minister. The ships log also show that the direct encounter took place at a range of less than three hundred kilometres. If I may remind the council, the alien’s missiles were observed crossing that distance in less than two seconds."

  "Yes but…" Farooqui attempted to cut in.

  "Also may I remind the council that Mississippi had sustained severe damage to all major ship board systems? Captain Crowe held his fire until the alien turned its main armament towards him. At that point Mississippi had to fire or surrender his ship to destruction."

  "There is also nothing to indicate that an unarmed explorer wouldn’t have been met with the same response. The difference being that an unarmed vessel would almost certainly not have survived the encounter." Lewis added flatly.

  "Can we be sure that no attempt to communicate with Mississippi was made?" The British Prime Minister Michael Layland asked.

  "We’ve had three independent teams from Battlefleet, Science Directorate and the North American Space Agency go over the logs, communication, radar and sensor records, with a fine tooth comb. We know they h
ad a Faster Than Light transmitter, because we detected an FTL transmission being made just before the ship blew. However the logs give no indication that any such transmission was directed at Mississippi before they were fired upon. In essence, even with the benefit of hindsight, we haven’t been able to find anything the crew of Mississippi missed."

  "Do you believe that this is an inherently hostile species Admiral?" The President asked.

  Wingate sighed and leaned forward.

  "In truth Madam President, what we know about this species is the sum of very little. This could be as you say an inherently hostile species, equally this incident could be the result of mistaken identity, it could be a single captain loosing his, her or it’s nerve or even a weapons malfunction. We simply do not know."

  "Then perhaps it would be wise to stay away from their borders."

  "With respect Madam President but where is the border?"

  There was a pause for a moment as everyone considered the admiral’s question.

  "It should be noted that this incident took place within twenty five light years of Landfall and Baden Station." Admiral Lewis added. "There is no guarantee they don’t consider those points to already be in their sphere of influence."

  "Was there anything in the system that they might have been attempting to protect?" The Italian Prime Minister asked.

  "Mississippi was of course only performing an initial survey but there was nothing to make us hurry back. Seven planets, two of them gas giants, no planets in the Liquid-H2O band. No indication of native life or any particularly exciting ores."

  "I think perhaps we should accept that we cannot currently answer why Mississippi was fired upon and move on." PM Layland paused before continuing. "The question is response. We can either cease exploration in that direction for the time being and wait to see what, if anything, comes of it or investigate to determine whether diplomatic relations can be opened or what the level of threat is."

  The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spoke and they waited for the translation to come through.

  "What can we currently determine of their military capabilities?"