The Nameless War

by Edmond Barrett

  Brian laced her fingers together behind her head and leaned back in her chair. She was glad now that she had decided to listen to the briefing in the privacy of her own cabin. The senior officers would have to be told, but for the crew at large to know that they had been written off would do disastrous things for morale. ‘You and Dauntless are considered expendable’ how typical of the man. Where others would have hinted Lewis just came right out and said it. They’d met during the training for the old Phoenix fighters just before the start of the Contact War. But now, the best part of forty years later, that hadn’t stopped him from throwing her into the fire. Frankly she would have been disappointed had it been any other way. Reaching down to her belt she activated her intercom.

  "Captain O’Malley."

  "Yes Ma’am?"

  "Gather all the senior officers to the briefing room. We have a lot to do."

  Chapter Nine

  Scorched Earth

  31st July 2066

  Deimos hung dark and silent at the edge of the system, her passive sensors probing, searching for any sign of activity. On his bridge Crowe sat silently in his command chair, around him the sensor rating slowly worked their way through the various frequencies. Anything that seemed out of place was checked against the ship’s records, every time they found it to be a natural occurrence. They had been holding position for three hours already; the time to make a decision had come.

  Crowe looked across the bridge at Commander Hockley; his second in command was standing behind the sensor ratings, looking over their shoulders. Hockley turned and shook his head.

  "We’re picking up no sign of enemy activity, sir."

  Crowe felt a sense of disappointment; it looked they were going to have to do it.

  "What about Junction, anything?"

  "Negative, sir, no beacons, no chatter, no sign of insystem communications. It’s plausible, that they could have heard the war warning, they could have gone dark, sir."

  "That’s the best case scenario Commander." Crowe replied before shaking his head. "Alright, Navigation, make the jump calculations," he ordered, "as close to Junction as you can get it. Sensors, I want a passive drone dropped to monitor our entry/exist point. Commander Hockley, I want the ship closed up at action stations for the jump-in, then assuming nothing happens we’ll open up, except the gun crews, they stay at their stations. all right people, we’re going in."

  _______________________________

  29th July 2066

  In the starboard engine room of Deimos, Bosun Wallace Benson and Commander Hockley examined the electrical generator. Both men were in their survival suits with their helmets sealed.

  "Do you see what I mean, sir?" Benson asked.

  "Yep, I do." Hockley answered back as he pulled himself out from under the generator. "Let’s go outside."

  A temporary airlock had been fixed over the hatch into the engine room; Benson closed it behind them, muting much of the noise of the machinery beyond.

  "That’s a serious botch job under there, Bosun." Hockley said as he pushed back the visor of his helmet.

  "Not lost on me, sir," Benson agreed, "sorry about that, sir, but we were seriously pushed for time and, I would respectfully say, it was a crappy design to begin with though."

  The one hit they had taken during the escape from Baden, had wrecked the portside reactor room, it had also driven missile fragments into the centreline bulkhead that separated the two reactor rooms. Most of the fragments failed to penetrate, one however, punched through and clipped the starboard side generator. It hadn’t damaged the generator itself, instead it struck the power distribution box, which, unlike on most human ships, was integrated onto the generator rather than a separate component. A space saving measure adopted by Deimos’s designers, one which Benson had spent much of the past four days cursing.

  The problem was that the box was the point at which the power from the generator was split into the ships various electrical circuits. The damage to the distribution box severed the power flow to those circuits. Combined with the write off of the generator in the port engine room, Deimos had suffered a complete of loss electrical power. In the rush to restore power the repair had been very rough and ready, particularly since so many of the engineering crew had been killed.

  "The problem is, sir, it’s going to fall over again, that’s a cast iron guarantee. The whole repair, it’s just a mess of potential short circuits. Any kind of physical shock will do it, particularly since we had to bypass most of the breakers."

  "Any chance of fixing it on the fly?" Hockley asked.

  Benson shook his head.

  "I’m not a good enough electrician, sir, neither is anyone else that’s still standing. It don’t help, that we have to work in suits in there."

  "Still haven’t pinned down that slow leak?"

  "Oh we know where it is, sir." Benson replied sourly. "The bloody hole, is somewhere behind the number two power line, but its too small to pull in a sealant. So we’re going to have to stay in suits in there, which makes everything that bit harder."

  "What are we talking to fix this?"

  "Complete shutdown of the electrics, for at least six hours." Benson said in an uncompromising tone. "It might well be longer, depends on how well it goes."

  "Bosun, that’s not going to go down well with the skipper."

  "I know, sir. I can talk to him-"

  "No." Hockley interrupted sharply.

  Benson looked surprised at the reply.

  "Sorry Boss." Hockley added apologetically. "We only got the skipper off the bridge about an hour ago. He needs sleep."

  "How long had he been-"

  "At least thirty hours." Hockley sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly "There’s nothing we can do about this until we drop back into real space, I’ll talk to him then. We’re going to need the skipper’s personal radar sharp, when we stop for our next cool down."

  "Amen to that, sir. When will we be jumping in?"

  "About four hours. I’ll talk to him then." Hockley replied after glancing at his watch. "Hell, I should be off duty myself. Look, I’m going to hit the bunk for a few hours, I suggest you do the same."

  _______________________________

  Crowe lay on his bunk, watching the holo display that was being projected against the bulkhead. He felt desperately tired, but sleep eluded him. The stimulant he’d taken a few hours ago hadn’t done a damn thing to take away the tiredness, it had just left him feeling slightly numb. Still hours more had trailed by and he remained on the bridge. Finally the Commander summoned the ships surgeon, who politely but firmly, threatened to remove him from duty on medical grounds unless he rested.

  He rolled out of his bunk and walked back and forth across the cabin, before throwing himself back onto the bunk. He felt edgy, like he needed to do something. He picked up a book, then tossed it back onto the shelf. He had fair idea of the cause of his disquiet. At Baden he’d reacted on instinct, overreacted really, but his almost panicked response, had meant when the rest of the fleet was being butchered, Deimos was closed up and ready to fight. Now he couldn’t drop out of that mental state of red alert, and it was wearing him out.

  Not that there weren’t some positive points. Before the attack neither his officers nor crew had faith in him as their Captain, but now even the most junior rating knew that their skipper had saved them. The ‘Skippers Radar’ was what they were calling it. After a year of accusation and criticism, it was almost exhilarating to find himself promoted to the position of walking, talking good luck charm.

  He gave up on sleep, for the time being, and sat up in his bunk to watch the holo. The image was being sourced from one of the ships rear facing cameras; the closest ship was clear, but the furthest was little more than a glimmer in the blue lit distance. Deimos was at the head of a column of seven ships, astern was a repair ship, two merchant vessels, two destroyers, and last but by no means least, the battleship Colossus; the other cause of Crowe’s concerns.

  Wh
ile Deimos had got away relatively lightly damaged, Colossus had been terribly battered. Her entire armament was knocked out, the electronics package was mostly shattered and her engines were barely running. Worst of all was the crew, over half had been aboard Baden when the attack began, few had made it back to the battleship before she disengaged from the station. The once powerful flagship, was now little more than a millstone, slowing the progress of the rest of the squadron.

  CinC of the Third Fleet, Admiral Camile had been aboard Baden for a meeting, and was among those left behind, Captain Lukeman, his Flag Captain, however had remained on the ship and despite the state of his command, he was still the senior officer.

  But for the moment, Crowe was prepared to accept that was one problem he couldn’t currently solve. The gentle blue light of the conduit walls, started to finally lull him towards sleep, his eyes finally started to flicker closed. Then snapped open again, frowning he rolled off the bunk and walked over to the bulkhead. He reached through the projection, and scratched curiously at the metal, before stepping back again. He picked up his intercom set and clicked it on.

  "Bridge, this is the captain."

  "Bridge here, sir."

  "Bridge, is there a problem with Colossus?" Crowe asked.

  There was a pause before the bridge responded.

  "Jez, skipper how did you know?"

  Crowe stood in the middle of the bridge, his arms crossed and his face set, as he watched the display. Most of the ships senior officers were also there, to see for themselves the latest problem. The destroyer Mantis had closed up on Colossus, holding a position less than two hundred metres clear of the battleships hull. The images were being taken by the destroyer’s cameras, then transmitted forwards to Deimos. They focused inside a massive rip in the battleships hull, caused by one of the half dozen or so big missiles Colossus had stopped the hard way.

  "Thank you Carol, we’re getting the pictures now." Crowe said looking down at a smaller screen. "Have you managed to contact Colossus?"

  "To a certain extent, sir." Commander Berg replied cross the radio link up. "Their radio and laser coms seem to have gone down again, we had someone try to talk to us with a signal lamp."

  "Try?" He asked

  "They weren’t very good at Morse, sir. I’m reasonably sure, that they know their fuel tank has ruptured."

  "Does anyone have any idea on how much fuel they had or lost?"

  "No, sir." Commander Hockley replied. "We did ask Colossus yesterday; we were told basically to mind our own business. ‘Fuel levels are the concern of the flagship’ was the exact answer." Disgust was obvious in the Commanders voice.

  "From where I was standing, it looked like a lot of fuel sir." Berg said.

  "Captain." Said Benson.

  "Yes Bosun?"

  "Sir, if you look at this," Benson’s finger ran across the screen, "the fuel tank must have taken a glancing hit. You can see the scoring here and here, it gave under the pressure."

  "Which means it was full." Crowe said flatly.

  "Or nearly full sir." Benson agreed.

  "And those idiots over there, didn’t think to check the tank’s integrity, even after taking a hit so close to it?" Hockley exclaimed. "How the hell, could they miss something like that?"

  "There aren’t enough of them left, Commander." Crowe replied quietly. "Most of Lukeman’s officers were on Baden station, so were a lot of the crew; I think he only got about a third of his people out. I honestly hate to think, what the inside of that ship is like."

  "What do you want to do now, sir?" Hockley asked after a few moments.

  "Unfortunately we don’t have any real choice, we have to continue to our intended cool down point and hope Colossus has enough fuel to make it."

  "That’s more than three hours, sir." Hockley objected.

  "I know commander." Crowe said.

  "Sir, the next fold is twenty minutes away; we could drop out into interstellar space and try to affect repairs."

  Crowe considered the option before replying.

  The Pre-contact theories had come up with the idea of folded space, a single fold joining two points in the universe. The reality was somewhat more complicated. Instead of a single fold there were many folds, more like corrugated space, with the jump conduit tunnelling through the middle of the corrugation. Jump drives didn’t bring the two points together, but it did bring them a lot closer. The compression of reality meant that the distance between two points actually travelled by a ship in the conduit, was far shorter than the distance travelled between the same two points by a ship in real space. However each time the ship passed from one fold to another it had an opportunity to break back into real space early.

  As a general rule however, it was more of a theoretical option, than a practical choice. Early real space re-entry, would usually put a ship somewhere in interstellar space; which brought dangers of its own.

  All navigation boiled down to knowing your position, relative to the local spatial bodies. In interstellar space the nearest points of references, would be light years away, making the exact location of a ship impossible to determine. If a ship in interstellar space suffered a jump drive failure, then even in peace time when a beacon could be activated, the chances of anyone finding the ship again would be insanely remote.

  "No, we won’t do that Commander." Crowe said eventually. "With their communications down we can’t tell them what we’re doing, if they miss the jump out… " He shook his head. "Well, that would be bad. No, we continued as planned."

  "And hope we’re lucky." Hockley suggested.

  "Well that would be a break from form." Crowe replied shaking his head. "Who’s watch is it?"

  "Mine, sir." Said Lieutenant Colwell.

  "Lieutenant, keep an eye on Colossus, conform to her speed but if it starts dropping drastically wake me."

  "You’re going below, sir?" Hockley asked.

  "The other shoe has dropped, Commander." Crowe replied as he walked towards the back of the bridge. "Nothing we can do for the moment but wait and see how things pan out; I had a feeling we were going to have more trouble before we reached home."

  "Looks like the skipper’s radar is still on line." Colwell muttered as the hatch clanged shut behind Crowe.

  ___________________________

  The solar system had first been charted in twenty forty-eight, by the Japanese exploration ship Yubari, they had found little of interest, not even enough to justify naming the system. For nearly twenty years it had been nothing more than a dot on starcharts, now once again humanity had returned.

  Colossus had made it, but only by the most slender of margins, shortly after achieving orbit the battleship’s engines were shut down completely. She now hung over an unnamed Mars-like planet, broken and silent. Well, nearly silent. Shortly after returning to real space, Lukeman had ordered aboard Crowe, plus the captains of Scorpion, Mantis and the repair ship Samaritan. It seemed that their senior officer felt that a conference was in order, and on that point Crowe agreed. Crowe was back in his cabin, changing into a clean uniform for the meeting. Under the circumstances it probably wasn’t necessary, but Crowe also wanted to have a word with Hockley, out of earshot with anyone else.

  "Have you ever served with Captain Lukeman, Commander?" He asked, as he pulled on a clean shirt. Crowe’s eyes didn’t leave the holo, with the mauled battleship in the middle of the image.

  "Yes, sir." Hockley replied. "On board the Nile, he was the gunnery officer during my first ensign cruise." The Commander was sat on the only chair in the cabin; it was the only way the two of them could both fit in.

  "Know him well?"

  "No, sir," Hockley said shaking his head, "we were only on the Nile together for a few weeks; he was promoted off the ship. Do you know him?"

  "We were in the same intake year, went through the academy together. I don’t think I spoke to him more than a dozen times though. I do know tactically he was very good, top three in my year. He’s not married, extr
emely career orientated, definitely aiming for flag rank." Crowe added to himself. "I was always happy to top out at captain."

  "I see, sir." Hockley respond in a noncommittal tone.

  Crowe turned towards Hockley as he pulled on his jacket.

  "I’m worried Commander, I’m worried about what Lukeman plans."

  "Sir?"

  Crowe waved towards the holo.

  "If that ship simply ground to a halt through system failure, that would at least make the situation simple; we’d take the crew off, scuttle her and carry on. Instead that bloody fuel tank ruptured, that makes things less simple."

  "You think he’ll …."

  "Take fuel from other ships, yes." Crowe finished.

  "There isn’t any real slack in our fuel reserves, sir. The numbers I got yesterday, said no one else is running with more than half tanks. Samaritan in particular, is going to be flying on fumes and memories, by the time we reach Earth."

  "Yet she is the biggest ship after Colossus, she doesn’t have any spare fuel, but she does have the most fuel."