“Dubious,” out of the corner of her eye Alanna saw him give her an appraising look. “Dubious was the nickname of the old Dauntless. Honouring the dead?”
“Something like that,” she replied quietly.
“I couldn’t quite believe it when I heard old Dubious had gone into action at Alpha Centauri. I wish I’d been there.”
“If you had, you be dead by now.”
Deyn paused, “What was it like?” he asked hesitantly.
“It was war,” she replied simply. “I watched my squadron get whittled away to nothing, saw Dauntless and her escorts go up, even saw my gunner die. I was the only one to survive.”
“Is that why you volunteered for this posting?” Deyn said. When Alanna looked as him sharply he shrugged. “Your gunner told me you applied for this. Do you think you shouldn’t have survived?”
“If you’re about to start talking about survivor’s guilt, believe me, I am already familiar with the term.”
“It is a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a good reason.”
“I hate clichés,” she grunted, “and I hate all of that head doctor babble,” before sighing, “I attacked the Nameless fleet twice and both times I beat the odds to come out alive. Then, when everyone else was dead, I sat in the wreck of my fighter, waiting to die of hypothermia, but I beat the odds again and a rescue ship found me.”
“And now you’re playing the odds yet again.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m a fighter pilot. What else can I do?”
“What do you think?” Crowe asked as he closed the cabin hatch behind them.
“She’s in need of therapy,” Hockley said as he sat down.
“Certainly that was one hell of a way to shut the conversation down.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to her before we left Earth. I didn’t…”
“It’s alright Commander,” Crowe interrupted. “What we have is an officer who came out of the far side of a massacre. Being a bit short with people does not make her a head case. That being said, if she twitches the wrong way even once, she’ll be off my ship so fast people will think I used a rail gun!”
___________________________
Deimos dropped back into real space at the head of the convoy, with gun crews closed up. Behind her filed the rest of the ships, dominated by the looming presence of the battleship Renown. As they cleared the jump portal, the two fighters curved round and back to cover the convoy’s rear. The task group lingered at the edge of the solar system, sweeping with their passive sensors while destroyers broke and jumped away, to get far enough sideways to see behind the various planets of the system and the star itself. It all looked much as it had when Deimos fought her way out in August. But there was still one place where the Nameless could potentially hide.
“The task group is going to proceed to within one hour’s
flight of the rings,” Crowe told his two flight crews. They were all squeezed into a space that prior to the refit had been designated for the storage of non-critical materials and was now grandly titled the Pilots’ Briefing Room.
“At that point the heavy cruiser Zeus will be detached and proceed into the planetary rings. You’ll be joining the Zeus and her fighters to sweep the rings around the site of Junction Station.”
“Do we think we’re going to find the station, sir?” Alanna asked.
Crowe paused before replying.
“I don’t know Lieutenant. When we were last here the station was badly damaged. A lot of the infrastructure had been torn out. The Nameless might have destroyed the place after we left. We don’t know. Alternatively they might have left some surprises. There’s even a chance that a few of their ships might still be in there. Either way you will be providing close escort.”
As the flight crews file out, Crowe called Alanna back.
“Lieutenant Deyn is pretty green. This is going to be his first real combat op. You’re lead pilot, so keep an eye out for him.”
“I will sir,” she replied.
I wish they’d remember I’m pretty green, Alanna thought to herself as she buckled into Dubious. The only thing I’ve got lots of experience in is watching people die.
Even now, decades after First Contact and interstellar travel becoming if not quite routine, then relatively easy, there were people who still insisted on thinking spaceships spent at least half their time dodging around asteroids. In reality, if you took a slow boat between Earth and Mars you’d pass through the system’s asteroid belt and probably not even see one. Space was largely big and empty and the only place you were likely to come across asteroids in any kind of serious density was in the rings of a planet. Even then most ring formations were only a few hundred metres thick at most. Within human space, the rings around the planet Phyose were an aberration. With an average thickness of thirty kilometres and largely made up of building sized lumps of rock and ice, the current theory was that they were the remains of a moon that was destroyed in an interstellar collision within the past million years. But the practical effect was that an entire fleet could hide in them. If the notion took it.
Normally Dubious’s active and passive sensors could see for tens of thousands of kilometres in any direction. But inside the rings, they could barely tell Alanna what was going on ten kilometres away. It was one of the few times in space when the old mark one eyeball trumped modern technology. If that wasn’t bad enough there was their speed. The unofficial motto of the fighter wing was ‘speed is life’, so the fact that they were bumbling along at a velocity of only a few score meters per second was making Alanna grit her teeth. But the alternative was to leave Zeus far behind and probably end up laminated against the side of an asteroid.
“Dubious, this is Zeus Bridge,” the main radio channel crackled.
“Receiving you, Zeus,” Alanna replied.
“Just like to pass along a complaint we’ve received from the survey team. They’re saying your base ship made a lot of mess when it was last here. Apparently many asteroids have had their orbits disrupted.” Captain Lokke sounded amused.
“In their defence, Ma’am I believe they were being fired on at the time.”
“Apparently that detail is barely worth mentioning. Dubious, we’re coming up on Junction station in the next ten minutes. We’re going to hold at the outer beacon. I want you and Casper to sweep the perimeter of the cleared area. Our fighters are going to escort the survey team to the station, assuming it’s still there.”
“Understood, Zeus. Dubious out.”
“Do you think the station will still be there?” Schurenhofer asked.
“I wouldn’t put money on it,” Alanna muttered.
A few minutes later Schurenhofer replied: “pity you didn’t, Skip.” As they entered the small open area that had been created around Junction Station a spotlight from Zeus speared out, illuminating the station. The damage was apparent even at a distance but didn’t look any different from the last available images. “Doesn’t look any worse than it did when Deimos was here. Wonder why they didn’t smoke it?”
“Might not have thought it was worth it. After all, they were about to wipe out Earth,” Alanna replied. “Zeus, this is Dubious. We’re breaking off to sweep the perimeter. Casper, form up on my wing.”
“Roger that Dubious,” Deyn replied.
Together they began to make a slow sweep of the perimeter. Zeus held position at the beacon and her own fighters made a close range inspection of the station. They evidently saw nothing to alarm them, for twenty minutes later a boarding party left Zeus in one of the cruiser’s shuttles, while the cruiser itself moved more completely into the open area.
“God, you’d pity those guys,” Schurenhofer said breaking a long silence.
“Hmm?”
“That,” Schurenhofer nodded towards the wreckage off in the distance. It had been one of Junction’s two hydrogen skimmers. Its stern quarter and the engines they had contained had been blown apart, while the bows, which ha
d held the crew quarters, were now flattened against the side of an asteroid. “Amidships looks relatively intact. I wonder if anyone survived impact? Christ, can you imagine sitting there with the power off…” she trailed off as Alanna glared at her, “Sorry Skipper. I forgot.”
Alanna jerked the control column round. “Might as well take a closer look, since you’re so interested. And it’s the only thing round here that isn’t a rock.”
“They must have tried to run to hide in the ring when the Nameless arrived,” Alanna observed as they closed on the harvester, “The Nameless took out the engines and they couldn’t stop themselves from coasting forwards and into that rock. God, I hate being in here.”
Dubious’s light played across the hull of the harvester, throwing into sharp relief the rips in the metal work that ran forwards from the staved in bows.
“They sure aren’t going to salvage anything here,” Alanna muttered to herself as she surveyed the damage. “Even if anyone survived impact, not a single compartment would have held pressure afterwards.”
“Yeah, well here’s the thing Skip. I’m reading heat off that thing,” Schurenhofer said.
“Seriously?”
“Take a look.”
Alanna twisted round to look at the display. It was indeed indicating a weak heat signature from somewhere within the hulk.
“That ship should be in deep cold,” she muttered. “Casper, this is Dubious, are you getting a weak heat reading from the wreck?”
“Dubious, this is Casper. Yeah we’re just about picking it up. We were wondering about that.”
“Wondering? Jesuusss!” Schurenhofer muttered as she fiddled with the controls.
“Stay sharp back there, Casper,” Alanna snapped back, agreeing with her weapons controller’s sentiments. “Can you get a better lock on location?”
“No,” Schurenhofer said after a few minutes of fiddling with the controls. “It’s seriously weak. It could just be residual heat from the reactor Skip. It could be something operating off a battery.”
“After all these months?” Alanna replied dubiously as she continued to move the spotlight over the hulk. “Any idea where the reactor is on this thing?”
“Not a clue, Skip. And we don’t have any civilian ship’s details in our database.”
Alanna gently chewed her lip. Off the top of her head she could think of at least a dozen very ordinary things that could be causing it, yet there was definitely something about this heat reading that was setting off her mental alarm. Certainly there was no shortage of people who thought she was already a burn-out and she wasn’t entirely convinced they were wrong. But that didn’t mean she was wrong now.
“Zeus, this is Dubious.”
“Receiving you, Dubious.”
“Do you have schematics for Junction’s harvesters on file?”
“Hold on Dubious.” There was pause on the connection. She was glad whoever was on Zeus hadn’t asked why she wanted to know. “Dubious, that is a negative,” came the reply after a few minutes. “We do not have the exact type on file. We do have those of a similar class from the same shipyard. Transmitting now. Over.”
“Thank you, Zeus, Dubious out,” Alanna replied as the file appeared on her communications console. She quickly flicked through it, and then compared it to Schurenhofer’s screen.
“I swear that heat reading is coming from the cargo spaces. There shouldn’t be anything there to cause heat, not even emergency equipment,” Alanna said eventually.
“Do you think we should ask Zeus to send a search team over? Speaking of which, they must have finished sweeping the station. Zeus is moving in from the outer marker.”
“What, already?” Alanna exclaimed twisting round to glare back in the direction of the cruiser before switching to radio, “Zeus, this is Dubious.”
“Receiving you Dubious.”
“We’ve picked up a weak heat reading from the wreck of the harvester.”
“Understood Dubious,” came the reply after a few moments. “We’re moving to the inner marker. Keep an eye on it. The Captain may decide to send a team over to investigate. Zeus out.”
Alanna shook her head in disbelief, before turning back to her controls.
“Skip, how do we want to…”
“What’s that?” Dubious’s spotlight had illuminated something that seemed out of place. A rough square of plating had been cut out of the harvester and welded back into place.
“A repair maybe?” Schurenhofer said, but her tone was doubtful. She then glanced back at her display, “Jesus! Power spike!” As she shouted there was a burst of explosions from within the hulk and the square of metal was launched outwards. Straight at Dubious!
Alanna yanked the stick over. Thrusters fired along Dubious’s flanks as the fighter slid sideways. There was a bang in the cockpit as the hull plate clipped and carried away the starboard side thruster assembly. Alarms sounded as the Dubious was spun violently round by the force of the impact. Then first one, then another and then yet another missile burned past them.
“Zeus! INCOMING!” Alanna screamed as she slammed the engines into all ahead. Another missile passed her and a stream of gunfire poured from Casper into the hole in the wreck. As Dubious accelerated away after the missiles, a massive flash of lit up the cockpit from behind. Now focusing on the missiles, Alanna ignored it.
“Weapons hot!” Schurenhofer shouted as her fingers danced across her control board. Alanna didn’t reply as she locked the guns onto the first missile and fired. It blew as the plasma bolts slammed in. Alanna switched target to the second. Ahead, Zeus had been moving slowly forward, now she could see the cruiser’s engines go all astern but her guns stayed silent. Over by Junction Station the cruiser’s own fighters were scrambling to get into position. A third missile blew as another shot from Dubious grazed it. Finally Zeus’s own point defence grid sparkled into life and stopped the fourth and last missile only a few kilometres short of the cruiser. In Dubious’s cockpit there was no time for relief because now the collision detection alarm was sounding loud and shrill. Dubious rocketed past Zeus as Alanna dragged the nose round again. When they were making their way through the rings to Junction, she hadn’t fired the engines at more than fifteen percent power for longer than three continuous seconds. Now, chasing those missiles, she’d gone full burn for nearly twenty seconds. A wall of rock and ice loomed in Dubious’s path. Alanna pushed the engines to one hundred and ten percent and a glance at her navigation screen confirmed what her gut was already telling her.
They weren’t going to stop in time.
“Hold on,” she muttered as tail first Dubious raced out of the clear area and into the rings. The navigation system frantically tried to find a way through before crashing under the weight computations. Twisting round, she frantically tried to weave through, but with the starboard thrusters smashed, the handling had gone to pot. Alanna was barely aware of Schurenhofer swearing and gasping as they skimmed within metres of one asteroid after another. Dubious’s radiators began to glow as the waste heat from the engines was dumped into them. Schurenhofer started jettisoning missiles, gun ammunition, fuel and even their reserve O2 tanks. Anything that would reduce the mass of the fighter. Around them there were flashes as the jettison materials impacted the asteroids.
As the engines began to overcome the momentum, each manoeuvre became less frantic than the last. It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, but when she finally brought Dubious to a relative halt, it felt like she’d been holding her breath for hours.
Alanna took her shaking hands off the controls and gasped for breath. After a few minutes she became aware of the radio squawking.
“Dubious, this is Zeus. Can you hear me? Please respond. Dubious, can you hear me? Please respond.”
“Zeus, this is Dubious. We’re still here. We’re going to sit here fore a while until I feel better. Dubious over and out,” she replied. It was hard to slump in microgravity but Alanna managed it.
______
_____________________
“We’ve definitely established that the station is clean,” said Captain Lokke. The Zeus’s captain looked chastened across the holo and well she might, Crowe thought to himself. Her first outing and she’d damn near got Zeus shot up.
The rest of the squadron were now holding position in orbit just beyond the planet’s rings while the support ships moved in to reactivate Junction station. If the days’ events had proved anything, it was that this was indeed the frontline.
“I guess that was the point,” grunted the Admiral. “Leave the station unbooby trapped, then leave a missile battery pointed at it to take out the first ship that comes to it. Did we get much of the launcher?”
“No sir. We’re guessing that at least half the missiles were still in their racks when Casper hit them. There was nothing left.”
“Oh well,” the Admiral shook his head, “just as long as we learn from the experience.” He turned to Crowe, “And my compliments to Lieutenant Shermer, that was fine work. When Dubious shot past us, I really didn’t think they were going to survive. That was some serious flying. Please pass along my thanks.”
As the holos shut down, Crowe leaned back in his seat, staring into nothingness. The centre of the Junction Line was now established and only time would tell whether the Nameless would challenge it and, if they did, whether the fleet could hold it.
And I guess I’m stuck with Lieutenant Shermer as well, he mentally added.
Chapter Six
Resumption of Hostilities
23rd December 2066
“Let me guess. Mister Wyman again?” Eulenburg said in a tired voice.
“I’m sorry sir, but yes,” Lieutenant Casta replied. “I’m afraid this time he seems to have drummed up more support.”
“How many?”
“Most of his own settlement, plus another thirty or forty from elsewhere who are also complaining.”
“They also want transport back to their settlements?”
The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) Page 11