___________________________
17th July 2066
"With due respect, sir, you are seriously playing with fire." Commander Carol Berg warned her former captain. "Admiral Camile thinks Baden is safe and if you keep telling him he’s wrong you might find yourself on the next transport back to Earth."
Captain Ronan Crowe bit his tongue rather than snap at her. After a few seconds he let his breath out in an irritated hiss.
"Camile is wrong."
"Yes, but he has the slight advantage that he outranks both of us. I’m not senior enough to matter, but you? He is certainly able and, if you provoke him, willing, to drop your career right down the toilet. If we are to be honest your reputation is already-"
"Less than great." Crowe finished for her.
Crowe stared down into the centre of the square. The two officers were seated in one of the smaller cafés situated around the edge of Baden’s recreation square. On the far side of the square was a McDonalds restaurant, proudly baring a sign declaring it to be the furthest from Earth. With the square situated on the outer level of the centrifuge a large section of the centre of the deck was a massive viewing port. Every two hundred and twenty seconds the asteroid the base was built against rolled into view for fifty three seconds, then the view of the stars returned. The square teemed with off duty personnel but you could always spot newcomers to Baden, they were the ones walking very carefully across the glass deck.
There had been a time when looking out across such a mass of Battlefleet personnel would have filled him with a sense of belonging. But not any more. Crowe no longer felt that he really had a place here.
To say his reputation was damaged was probably one if histories great understatements. To all intents and purposes his career with Battlefleet was already over. When he limped his battered command back into Baden, Crowe had hoped that he would be allowed to keep her until she could return to Earth. But to his utter lack of surprise he was order to hand over command and get himself to Earth on a courier ship and explain his actions.
Yet despite this speedy return, news of the first encounter with the Nameless had reached Earth ahead of him. By the time he landed a thousand armchair tacticians, and perhaps ten times as many diplomatic and political types, had examined the Mississippi Incident in a minutiae of detail. There had been news reports, magazine articles and documentaries. Crowe found himself at the centre of this storm of attention. It quickly turned sour, and Crowe found that in the public domain he had been tried and found wanting.
This in itself might not have been fatal had he the support of his brother officers but that was not the case. Many made clear that they regarded him as the man who had fluffed a first contact situation and revived the image of the trigger-happy fleet officer. Others looked to the twisted and shattered hull of the Mississippi and saw a captain who had not reacted quickly or decisively enough, in short they saw failure.
There had been a few officers willing to publicly speak in his defence. The most prominence of these had been Admiral Lewis, but Crowe had occasionally over the past few months wondered whether he would have been better off without the support of the Home Fleet’s CinC. Lewis, to his admirers was a pragmatists, to his critics a cold blooded butcher, as far as the Admiral was concerned if a Battlefleet ship found itself in combat the only important thing was that it won. Any political considerations came a poor second… at best.
Crowe had been mildly surprised when the posting orders giving him a new command had arrived. But he immediately perceived the touch of politics. There had been serious calls from both the media and the political establishments of the Command Council members to dismiss him or at least put him behind a desk. But instead he was given another ship; not that it was any kind of ringing endorsement. If he was any judge Admiral Wingate was once again reinforcing the operational independence of the fleet.
His new command was the Luna class flak cruiser, Deimos. A relatively modern ship, armed principally with rapid firing small calibre railguns. While on Mississippi he had spent most of his time operating independent of the rest of the fleet. Deimos’s role was very different, her class had been designed to provide close escort for larger ships.
Or to put it another way, it kept Crowe within sight and reach of senior officers.
Berg had been luckier. As a junior officer she hadn’t registered on the radar screen of public consciousness. So while Crowe’s career went off the rails, hers remained on track. Six months after the incident Berg achieved sufficient time in grade to be offered a command of her own, in the form of the destroyer Mantis. A few months later Mantis was reassigned to Baden and the Third Fleet. It had been the first time Crowe had seen her since the last of the enquiries; frankly he wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d tried to distance herself from him. Instead she had actively sought him out and offered her support, and support was something he badly needed.
By the standards of asteroids Baden’s mass shadow was massively deep. But compared to that of a planet it was very small. When he arrived Crowe had immediately made the judgement that Baden’s defences were far from adequate.
Like damn near every ship and installation in the fleet Baden had been built assuming that the Aèllr would be the most likely enemy. If an Aèllr force attacked Baden, even if they came out right on the Red Line, it would be over twenty minutes before they got into firing range of the base. Enough time for the defenders to organise themselves. But the Nameless had their damn long range missiles. If a fleet of their ships came out on the line and fired, those missiles would be arriving before the defences could come on line, or any moored ships could crash start their engines and get underway.
This assumed the Nameless were hostile, or even possessed a fleet.
When he first arrived at Baden he had kept his own council. Then the discovery of the dead world became public and he started to speak out.
He had started to campaign forcefully that the base’s defences should be reinforced. Deploy more observation satellites outside the Mass Shadow and keep more ships on the outer picket.
The base commander, Admiral Azamat and senior officer of the Third Fleet, Admiral Camile, listened then politely rejected most of his suggestions. Crowe persisted and the refusals got steadily less polite. Changing tact, he attempted to win over the support of fellow captains. In most cases he was met with barely conceal derision. He was a captain who had his last command damn near shot out from under him and was now jumping at shadows. Not to mention, Mississippi was old, borderline obsolete in fact, yet she’d handled the Nameless. What did more modern ships have to fear?
Crowe belatedly realised he had settled into a brooding silence and gave Berg a wan smile.
"So, what next for you?" She asked
"Back to the outer picket." Crowe replied tiredly.
"What? Again?"
"Yes again. Camile took on board the idea of strengthening the outer picket. The fact that it gets me out of the way is probably nothing to do with anything I expect." He replied with more than a note of sarcasm in his voice.
"How long have you been out there?"
"Twenty six of the last thirty days. It isn’t exactly making me popular with the crew. Where are you going?"
"Exercises off Landfall with the rest of the squadron and the Antarctica. Then showing the flag among the habitats in the Ice Teeth. We should be back by Friday."
"We should see you passing in that case."
"So what’s the next step?"
Crowe leaned back in this chair and stared up at the deck head. For several minutes he didn’t answer.
"I don’t know if there is a next step, Carol." He said eventually. "I’m getting tired. I’m getting tired of wading through crap and achieving nothing."
Berg made no reply.
"Deimos’s tour out here ends in three months." Crowe continued. "Once I get home, I think I’m going resign my commission."
Berg drew breath sharply.
"Sir I don’t think…"
>
"I do."
"The fleet would be worse off without you, sir."
Crowe smiled slightly before finishing his coffee.
"Good of you to say Carol. Complete bollix of course but good of you anyway. I’ve got to go, new Bosun turning up. I think the old one is glad to leave."
___________________________
23rd July 2066
There was a flash as reality tore open and ejected the small courier ship L12. Within moments of its arrival the radiator shields slid open and the radiators began glowing dimly as the courier started purging its heat sink. After a moment’s hesitation the courier adjusted course, fired its engines and headed for Baden.
Although there were FTL transmitters on both Landfall and Baden, such devices were huge clumsy machines capable of delivering only very simple messages. Couriers represented the main means of communication across interstellar distance. Tiny ships, little more than an engine with the smallest possible hull wrapped around it, they constantly travelled the space lanes between Earth and her daughter worlds.
Back in the engine room of the courier Petty Officer Chuong hummed to himself as he waited. The suit muted all sounds but through the soles of his boots he could feel the vibrations of the generator. The reactor status board was all green. It looked like another jump safely completed. After a few minutes there was a chime across the intercom signalling the all clear. With a sigh of relief he opened the visor on his survival suit. The other two members of the engineering crew also cracked their suits. The junior member of the team started to pull off his suit.
"No, leave it on Francis." Chung advised. "We won’t be staying long enough to make taking it off worthwhile."
Across the engine room Rating Stephens shook his head and muttered
"Yeah, right."
"We’ll be dropping off the post to Baden, pick up whatever they want taken back. Bounce back across the Red Line Make a quick jump over to Landfall. Do the same again there and then start back to Earth." Chung continued ignoring Stephens.
"Well that’s the theory anyway." Stephens added from the other side of the engine room. "It’s a safe bet that someone will have dicked up and we’ll be waiting around scratching our arses."
"You really are a glass half empty person, aren’t you?" Chung accused.
"Can’t get used to the idea of crossing interstellar distance just to pop in. Seems kind of wrong to travel between stars just to deliver the mail." Said Francis trying to head off the argument.
"Joys of the courier service junior." Replied Stephens.
The PA system cut off further conversation.
"All hands this is the skipper. We’ve just received a transmission from Baden, they’re running late with their reports, so we’re going to have to hold for a while. But it will give us time to purge the heat sink, hopefully we won’t lose more than an hour or two. Bridge out."
No one said anything for a moment. Then with a sigh Chung started to pull off his suit.
"You ain’t a cynic if you’re right." Stephens remarked almost cheerfully.
"Oh shut up!"
___________________________
"Contacts bearing two-seven-three dash zero-one-three. Heading zero-nine-three dash three-five-three. They are on Alpha Baden approach."
The sensor ratings contact report was the first sound on the bridge in ten minutes aside from the occasional nervous cough. The silence had coincided with the appearance of Crowe on his bridge.
"IFF confirms contacts as the cruiser Antarctica and destroyers Rattlesnake, Scorpion and Mantis."
Out of the corner of his eye the newly promoted Bosun Benson watched his captain. Crowe was slumped in his chair watching the tactical holo with little apparent interest.
It hadn’t taken Benson long to realise that Deimos was not a happy ship. Its skipper was the man who, according to some, had so royally screwed up the first contact with the Nameless. He’d then followed that up by annoying the local commanders and now they were stuck, apparently indefinitely on picket duty. On the mess deck bets were being taken as to what the skipper would do to complete his personal run of bad fortune. Although he’d been aboard the ship for less than a week Benson was already aware that most of the officers and crew were counting the days until the end of the tour. He had a feeling the skipper was too.
"Communications have you challenged the contacts?" Crowe asked without looking up
"Err… No, sir." Replied the coms officer.
Crowe looked up and glared at the unfortunate man.
"We challenge any contacts entering our area Mister Whedon; we do not blindly trust friend or foe."
"Emm… Captain, engine profiles match three Predator class destroyers and a single Continental class cruiser, sir."
The captain ignored the sensor operator as the coms officer sent out the challenge. A few second later the officer reported with evident relief that the challenge had been correctly responded to. The captain merely grunted and returned his silent contemplation of the tactical holo.
Benson sighed inwardly. It was going to be a long tour.
___________________________
Rating First Class Joe Keaveney swore softly as he glared at the monitor screen. All around him the control room’s computer equipment hummed and buzzed. On the screen, menus appeared and disappeared as he ran through all the usual diagnostics without success. Finally he administered a dose of concussive maintenance to the top of the monitor, as much to relieve his own feelings as anything else.
"PO. Hey PO… PO Piper!" He shouted over his shoulder.
From outside a muttering started.
"What!" Shouted an exasperated voice.
"There’s a problem with one of the satellites."
"Well fix it!"
"I’ve tried fixing the sodding thing!"
"For the love of God, can’t a guy take a piss without having someone coming yapping?"
The Petty Officer walked in looking irritated.
"Alright what is it?"
"There’s something up with the visual pick up on the sentry satellite A-fifty three."
"What the hell do you mean ‘there’s something up’? It either works or doesn’t."
"Here look!" Keaveney slid out of the way.
The monitor was showing an unremarkable view of the stars, all except for a small section. Here the stars twisted and shimmered as if being seen through the heat haze of a fire.
Piper examined it for a moment.
"You didn’t clean the bloody dome, did you?" He said accusingly.
"Yes I did clean the fecking thing. Anyhow look." Keaveney moved a small joystick on the control console. The camera panned back and forth, on the screen the disruption moved across the screen and back again.
"So what’s that then? A mobile smear?"
Piper leaned closer.
"A jump-in point forming?" He asked in a dubious voice.
"What, inside the Mass Shadow? I don’t think so." Keaveney replied scornfully
"Where is it?"
"About twenty thousand clicks out, on route to station beyond the Red Line. You want me to bring it back in?"
Piper stared at the screen and sighed. It was always the way of these things, they never showed up the glitches when they were in for maintenance, they waited until they were back out again. This was definitely an odd one though. None of the other scanners on the probe were indicating anything outside normal parameters. He could bring it back in, but the brass had got a bee in its bonnet lately about having as many sentry sats on station as possible. If he brought it back in the Lieutenant would probably moan and when you got right down to it the optical camera wasn’t all that important. It could wait for the next maintenance cycle.
"Just make a note of it in maintenance logs. we’ll check it out the next time we bring it in."
___________________________
"All hands, rig for ordinary, rig for ordinary." ordered Flores across the intercom.
Across the bridge crewme
n and officers cracked the seals on their survival suits. There was a low murmur of conversation as people started to stow their suits. After a few minutes the day watch started to take the place of the combat watch.
Like Deimos on the opposite side of Baden, Harbinger was patrolling back and forth about one hundred and fifty thousand kilometres inside the mass shadow. But unlike Deimos, the atmosphere on the bridge was relaxed and comfortable. The stylus scratched across the pad as Flores took notes while they were clear in his head.
With the engine repairs complete he’d put in a request to spend a day on the outer picket. Sims were always a useful way to train and exercise the crew but they could never quite beat the real thing. Their spell in docks had seen a number of personnel being rotated out of the ship. Given the nature of their assignment the replacements had all been experienced hands, but a new crew needed the opportunity to find their feet and picket duty gave Harbinger the room to work through some manoeuvers.
Given time Flores would have liked to have made use of the Fleet’s live fire area but the civilians were already on their way back from their shore leave. Within a few hours they would be re-embarking and they would be on their way out to find the Nameless.
"Sir, do you want to see the numbers from the exercise?"
Flores looked up, his new First Officer; Commander Weissensee had been among those entering the bridge from his action station in damage control. The Commander was a slightly portly Austrian of roughly average height, with a mop of brown hair and slightly weak chin, he managed to have a look that was far from the recruitment poster ideal. But with a record that included spells on almost every type of warship the fleet possessed and a series of excellent ratings, he was quite a catch. It seemed the Commander had caught the eye of someone senior and was likely being groomed for serious command. Weissensee’s last commission had been command of a destroyer and this would most likely be his final tour as a commander before being offered his captainancy and a cruiser of his own. Still for the time being he was a welcome addition to Harbinger.
The Nameless War Page 11