The Nameless War

by Edmond Barrett

  On her holo display, Willis watched as the two pairs of blips converged. The pair on the left came together, then blinked out. The second pair merged… then separated again.

  "Oh shit! Hurricanes missed! Countermeasures full spread. Bows down twenty degrees. Engines, all ahead emergency!" Willis snapped out.

  The missile curved in as the two cruisers started to weave and swerve. Plasma bolts burned around it, but even at short range, the cruiser’s elderly fire control systems couldn’t cope with such a small target.

  "It’s going for Hurricane." Willis muttered to herself.

  No one on the bridge responded. There was nothing to say.

  They obviously realised the same thing on the Hurricane’s bridge and the cruiser started to throw itself about in increasingly violent manoeuvres. The missile went full burn for its final approach and Hurricane lurched downwards, in a last desperate attempt to dodge.

  It nearly succeeded.

  The missile contacted the dorsal wing and detonated, Hurricane was enveloped by a sphere of fire. Willis felt her blood freeze as the ship disappeared then the fire burnt out and Hurricane staggered back into view.

  The damage was horrific. Almost all the upper surface fittings were blown away or flattened, one engine had been ripped almost clean off its mounting. Debris cascaded away from the shattered cruiser like metal confetti as atmosphere gushed from multiple hull breaches.

  "Give me a com link up to Commander Espey, right now!" She screamed at her communications officer. She could hear an edge hysteria in her voice, yet didn’t care. It only took a minute or so to get the link up, but it felt like a lot longer. Since the start of the battle she hadn’t had a chance to communicate directly with Vincent. Now as she looked at what was left of Hurricane, she wondered whether she had already spoken to her friend for the last time.

  Vincent’s face appeared on the small screen in her chair’s armrest beside her. He appeared at an odd angle on the screen and the visor on his survival suit was closed. He was pale and there were spots of blood on the inside of his visor, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. Static blotted him out for a moment before the image stabilised. The bridge that was visible behind him was a wreck, a motionless body rested against the rear bulkhead.

  "Oh thank God. Vinc, how bad?" She hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath and the words came out in an explosive burst.

  Vincent shook his head.

  "I think the power of prayer is the only thing holding this old girl together. Hull is severely damaged, only two engines is still working. I think everyone in fire control is dead, which is a moot point, cause we don’t have a working gun left. I don’t know how many of my people are still alive." He said flatly. He shook his head again and added more quietly. "I think we’re going to be walking home Faithie; I can feel her dying under me."

  "We’ll take you off-"

  "Not in the middle of a firefight you won’t. Make a break for the fleet, we’ve had it."

  This time it was Willis’s turn to shake her head.

  "No, I won’t do that. Tuck in I’ll cover you as best I can."

  "Faith this isn’t the time…"

  "I won’t catch the rest of the fleet." Willis cut him off. "Tuck in. That’s an order."

  "We’re the same rank Faith."

  "I’ve seniority by ten days… and the less banjaxed ship. Just hold her together Vince, we’ll get you home."

  ___________________________

  The courier was getting ever more determined, or perhaps desperate, to reach them. It kept pushing forward. It nearly pushed too hard. One of the Nameless ships got tricky, cut its drive and coasted towards the courier on a ballistic run, before suddenly powering up its systems and opening fire. For a horrible moment Lewis thought the courier had been destroyed. After a minute Warspite’s computer dispassionately stated that it had jumped out. Twelve minutes later it appeared once again at the edge of radar range and started to move in.

  Lewis had read enough history, to know that many military leaders of the past had lost battles by becoming obsessed with some small and unimportant aspect of the conflict. There were scores of Nameless ships still around them, space was still thick with their missiles and almost all of his surviving ships were carrying damage to a greater or lesser extent. But the courier didn’t feel unimportant. Far from it in fact, it felt like something vital.

  "How many fighters do we have still out there?" He asked without looking around.

  "There are none left, sir." Staff Captain Sheehan replied immediately.

  Lewis’s eyes fell upon the two small blips of Cruiser Squadron Eighteen, the Geriatrics. The two ships were far astern of the Fleet, they were also the closest to the courier. They might be able to get close enough to it to put a com laser on it, yet still be able to laser the rest of the fleet. It would however unquestionably be a suicide mission. Lewis opened his mouth to give the order that would send them to their doom. The courier blinked out.

  The courier burst back into realspace right in the middle of the Home Fleet! Two cruisers had to make violent turns to avoid running it down. Seconds stretched out as the courier turned towards Warspite. A cap ship missile changed course towards the little ship. A communication laser speared out at Warspite. The courier must have seen the missile, barely smaller than itself, burning in. But it held a steady course, it couldn’t delivered its message and dodge at the same time. It opted to take the hit.

  "We’ve been lasered." Sheehan called out.

  The missile went into the courier. The little ship folded around it then disappeared as its reactor detonated.

  "Did we get their signal?" Lewis shouted. Men and women had died to deliver this message. There couldn’t be greater proof that something was terribly wrong.

  "Going to your screen, sir!"

  Lewis yanked his screen into position. The message scrolled down.

  "Oh dear god." He murmured.

  "Sir! The enemy is changing course!"

  Lewis glanced up. Like a flight of starlings the Nameless ships suddenly turned and came curving in towards the Home Fleet. Every ship burning towards the human ships at maximum acceleration.

  On Lewis’s screen, momentarily forgotten, lay the message.

  ++ Message Start. From Vice Admiral Emily Brian – Dauntless to CinC Home Fleet – Warspite. Have encountered second, repeat second enemy fleet at ten point two from hub, bearing zero, three, nine dash zero, zero two. Estimate enemy strength two hundred plus, I am moving to engage. Message End ++

  Chapter Fourteen

  Wing and a Prayer

  The Nameless Fleet glided serenely through the unimaginable vastness of space. Lean and deadly warships queued patiently for the attentions of the lumbering fuel tankers. Around the massive and terrible fleet the indifferent stars shone. Then far ahead, a new pinprick of light appeared and just as quickly disappeared. More flashes followed, some points of light, others rippling pulses. The Nameless ships did not react, all was going to plan.

  On his bridge, Lewis sat in his command chair, locked in uncharacteristic indecision. At his elbow, the screen still showed the short but terrible message.

  … From Vice Admiral Emily Brian – Dauntless to CinC Home Fleet – Warspite. Have encountered second, repeat second enemy fleet at ten point two from hub, bearing zero, three, nine dash zero, zero two. Estimate enemy strength two hundred plus, I am moving to engage.…

  They were fighting a decoy, a bloody decoy! The main fleet was elsewhere in the system refuelling unmolested while they fought a decoy. As he sat there almost paralyzed by shock, Lewis knew he needed to be giving orders, sending signal, reacting! But his mind was stalled; unable to comprehend the information it was being presented with. Instead a single thought jammed in his mind like a stuck record. They were fighting a decoy!

  Dimly he heard Staff Captain Sheehan shouting as if from very far away.

  "Sir, your orders!… Admiral, we need orders!"

  Behind Sheehan, on the tactic
al display the Nameless fleet burned in and Lewis’s personal reality suddenly snapped back together.

  "We have to break contact! Signal all ships of the fleet to prepare to jump out to the second fleet." Lewis snapped out.

  "Roger! Transmitting."

  The Home Fleet’s fire began to slacken as its ships channelled power to their jump drives. The range between the two fleets was dropping rapidly as the Nameless charged. Their missiles were still coming thick and fast but now the defensive fire was heavily diminished, more and more missiles were finding their mark.

  "Admiral, Cerberus reports her jump drive as been knocked out." Sheehan reported as Warspite was rocked by missile hits.

  "Pair her up with someone who still has a drive." Lewis called back. He paused as another missile hammered into Warspite and the ship rocked wildly. "Order the destroyers to lay down chaff to screen the main fleet."

  "Bridge to Flag." Captain Holfe’s voice crackled across the intercom.

  "What is it captain?" Lewis replied instantly.

  "Sir. The enemy’s firing pattern has shifted, they’re targeting our bows. Sir, they’re going for our nodes!"

  "How many have we lost?"

  "Three already and we’re still ten minutes from jump out."

  "God damn it."

  The nodes were part of the jump drive that channelled the massive energy necessary to open a jump conduit. Inherently delicate components, they spent most of the time protected behind a ship’s heaviest armour. But to be used they had to jacked out from behind that protection and heated up to operating temperature. A process that would take at least fifteen minutes.

  On Warspite’s tactical display, the status codes for the cruisers Isis and Váli changed as they took node damage. In doing so they joined the four ships that had already lost their jump capability. Lewis didn’t need anyone to tell him that the Home Fleet was being steadily stripped of the ability to enter jump space. Few if any ships would be jump capable if they kept their nodes out.

  "General signal; Cancel jump command." Lewis turned towards Sheehan. "We’re pinned." He admitted. They’d blown it. At short range the Home Fleet would beat the hell out of this Nameless Force. But the time that took, would allow the second fleet to move unmolested into position to strike against Earth. I am moving to engage. Emily had never lacked backbone, but to pit a single overage carrier and a pair of destroyers against an entire fleet, was an act of madness.

  But what else could they do? They, no, he, had blown it.

  ___________________________

  On the bridge of Hood, Willis cursed beneath her breath as the Nameless ships came charging in from all angles. Even the handful of enemy ships astern, that had so far been content to snipe at them, were now going full burn and overhauling them fast.

  "The rest of the fleet is decelerating ma’am." Reported her senior sensor operator.

  "That’s something at least." She muttered.

  "Bridge, coms. We caught the edge of a laser transmission, skipper."

  "What was it?"

  "I only caught a bit of it, something about jumping out."

  Willis and Horan exchanged a look of alarm. Hood had needed the assistance of a tug to get to Alpha Centauri. That tug had dropped back into real space short of the battle zone and was now waiting somewhere beyond the limits of the solar system. Under her own power, jumps within the solar system were as much as Hood could manage. Willis doubted that Hurricane would be able to get into Hood’s jump conduit and even if she did, the gravitational turbulence would probably shake her apart.

  "Sensors! Any sign that the fleet is jumping out?"

  "Err… no Ma’am I thought I saw one of the ship deploy its nodes but they seem to have been retracted."

  Willis let out a small sigh of relief.

  "Okay it must have been just garbled communications." She said.

  "Or wishful thinking by someone." Horan added.

  Willis didn’t reply to him though, her attention had shifted back to the main holo. The formation of the Home Fleet was tightening up. By eye she measured the distance between the remains of the Geriatrics and the rest of the fleet. Much as she willed it, it remained very wide, far too wide. Even if they’d had been on her own there was no way, given the state of Hood’s clapped out engines, that they could close on the fleet before being over-run. Of course they weren’t on their own. The mortally wounded Hurricane was still tucked in under Hood’s starboard wing. Vincent had made clear that his command was dying on her feet. If Hood stood and fought it would probably make little difference to Hurricanes ultimate fate, except Hood would share it. As a professional officer, Willis forced herself to consider the possibility of breaking for the fleet and leaving a friend behind.

  And rejected it.

  Hurricane was so beat up she wouldn’t even serve as a speed bump. The Nameless would simply mow her down as they passed then proceed to overhaul Hood.

  "Helm prepare rotate one-eighty and go all astern on engines. Communications inform Hurricane of my intentions."

  "Ready Ma’am." Called back the helmsman

  "Execute."

  The steady pull of acceleration disappeared as the engines cut out. Then the wingtip motors fired and the ship swung round. The gunner didn’t wait for the order from Willis, as soon as his weapons came to bear he cut loose at the approaching targets. Hurricane didn’t attempt to match Willis’s manoeuvre, instead she swung in directly behind Hood. To protect her comrades stern with her own battered hull. Thus, back to back, the two cruisers braced themselves.

  ___________________________

  The walls of the jump conduit sparkled around the Dauntless and her escort, as the three ships rushed down it. On the carrier’s bridge, Brian found herself dry washing her hands. She glanced around the bridge almost guiltily, but no one had noticed their commander’s temporary lapse. For such a short jump, little more than nine million kilometres, they would only be in the conduit for a few seconds. Then things would get exciting.

  "Five seconds to real space re-entry." The navigator called out.

  "All hands brace for jump-in." O’Malley called out across the intercom.

  Emily clicked her helmet into position but left the visor open. She glanced towards the young lieutenant at the launch console. His gloved finger now rested lightly on the button that would unleash their cargo.

  "Not before I give the word Mister Kelly." She warned him. "We don’t want to drop our mines in the middle of some inoffensive bit of space."

  The lieutenant nodded tersely, his finger raised a millimetre above the button.

  The navigation console buzzed urgently as the countdown reached zero.

  "This is it! Brace! Brace! Brace!" O’Malley called out.

  Dauntless lurched violently as she burst back into realspace.

  The tactical holo blanked out as it waited for the first radar returns. Brian’s hands tighten around the armrests of her chair, as she prayed to god that the first returns wouldn’t show a missile baring down on them.

  "Contact… No! Multiple contacts!" Everyone on the bridge jumped as a rating shouted out. "IFF confirms enemy ships!"

  "Launch control, run out and launch all fighters." O’Malley snapped out. "Tactical, bring ECM online, point defence to stand by."

  On the main tactical holo, red icons started to appear all around the blips at the centre of the display; surrounded by red, the three green icons of the human ships seemed lost and alone. Emily found the sight was almost mesmerising; so many enemy ships so close. When you were used to fighting across astronomical units, the idea of the enemy being mere thousands or even hundreds of kilometres away was startling. Then abruptly the spell was broken.

  At the front of the bridge the helmsman muttered,

  "Oh sweet Jesus!" Before screaming. "Contact dead ahead!"

  C for Caesar was the first of Dauntless’s fighters to slide smoothly sideways out of its hanger into the stars. Alanna’s control board was green; only the docking
lock indicator glowed a sullen red.

  "Skip… What’s that?" Dhoni asked.

  "What?"

  He tapped the screen displaying the visual feed from the nose mounted camera. There was a bright dot near the centre. Dhoni zoomed in. It was a Nameless warship and it was on a collision course.

  "Oh crap." Dhoni said in a perfectly level voice. It was the first time Alanna had ever heard him swear.

  The human and alien ships were thundering towards each other, with a closing speed in excess of several hundred metres per second. At such a velocity impact, no matter how glancing, would be mutually catastrophic. In the van, Hammerhead jinxed to port and fired a salvo into the enemy ship. Dauntless, next in line was much slower to answer her helm, thrusters along the carriers’ flanks fired frantically trying to overcome the carriers’ momentum. In her cockpit Alanna hammered uselessly at the launch button. With the docking lock still activated the safeties refused to allow the engines to fire.

  On the bridge, Emily found herself holding her breath as the two ships hurtled towards one another. They saw Hammerhead’s salvo connect, atmosphere and pieces of shattered hull plating tumbled away from the alien. Stunned, it took no evasive action.

  "This is going to be close!" Someone muttered unnecessarily.

  Alanna, uselessly, braced herself for the impact as the alien ship reached them. One moment it was a dot in the distance, then it was right on top of them.

  Alanna knew instantly that she would always remember the sandy blur as the alien, moving too fast for details to be discernible, flashed past them. It got so close it seemed she could have touched it if she had only reached out her hand. Then just as suddenly it was a receding dot far astern.

  "Skipper?" Dhoni said quietly

  "Yeah?"