The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War)

by Edmond Barrett

  “Mister Harlow,” the Lieutenant said quietly, “we were getting leakage. It was interfering with the towed array.”

  “It’s alright Douglas,” Jeff replied diplomatically. “I’m sure I can do the piece later.” As soon as Jeff had stepped on board, Driscoll had made clear that he was there under sufferance. Still he was okay to deal with so long as Jeff handled him diplomatically.

  “Can I have it back if something happens? You know if there’s some action?” he asked politely. Driscoll looked up at him.

  “If you hear me order the engines go full burn, then you can have it back,” he said pointing. Jeff’s camera was tethered to the deckhead above him.

  “Thank…” Jeff started to say but Driscoll hadn’t finished.

  “But if there is any journalistic creative mishearing of me, I’ll stuff you into a storage module for the rest of the sweep. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Always the way. Pleasantries and diplomacy aside, he was still the outsider here.

  Twenty minutes later he was being reminded of the other fundamental fact of space travel: it was really boring.

  He was standing looking over Driscoll’s shoulder at his screen. It was a small hologram display showing a multicoloured sphere, mostly shades of blue with one small bright red patch and another of orange. To the amusement of a few crewmembers, on his first trip Jeff had mistaken these for ships and thought they were about to come under fire, but fortunately they turned out to be local star emissions. He’d endeavoured since then not to make himself look foolish. Watching the crew at work he’d learned a few things. The smaller of the two coloured patches indicated a planet, while the orange colour made it a gas giant. Which for some reason seemed to be the kind of planet K7 spent a lot of time around.

  “Skipper, I’m picking up a faint variance off the starboard side,” one of the crewmen at the sensor displays spoke up. Jeff had begun to doze and woke with a start.

  “What’s the variance?” Driscoll asked.

  “Faint infrared, plus charged particles. It’s a three percent variance over background noise.”

  Driscoll started to look interested.

  “Alright Mister Headey, please give processing priority to the starboard facing.”

  “Yes sir,” said someone else on the bridge.

  It’s like listening to a foreign bloody language, Jeff thought to himself, not for the first time. He took out his paper notepad and pencil and started taking some notes. The first time out on K7 he’d brought along a computer terminal to do his writing on, but that was promptly taken off him on grounds it emitted ‘detectable electrical emissions’, one of the two great obsessions of the courier’s crew. The other was acceleration. When he first came aboard, Utzon had taken almost macabre pleasure in showing him a graph that demonstrated how the extra mass of him and his gear had made their best possible acceleration curve slightly shallower. Paper and pencil had solved the first problem. He couldn’t do anything about the second one though.

  “Contacts bearing three, two, one dash zero, zero three. Two definite contacts, unknown number of further possibles. No sign of IFF returns.” The report was made in a calm voice but even Jeff could appreciate that this was something a little more serious.

  Driscoll rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Range?” he asked.

  “Approximately seven light seconds. Position, in the region of the Blue Line, can’t say which side though.”

  “Can we make a quiet approach?”

  “I believe so sir,” replied the helmsman. “As long as we do it in the next twenty minutes, we can make a low power turn, sir.”

  “Very well. Mister Headey, spool in the towed array. Helm, make the turn as soon as the array is retracted, manoeuvring engines only,” he ordered before looking up at Jeff. “This might be interesting.”

  “If you say so,” Jeff replied quietly, “I must admit, I don’t understand half of what you’re saying.” He’d been taking notes, but he’d have to wait until he got back into proper light before he found out how much of it was legible.

  There was a brief gleam of white teeth as Driscoll grinned at him.

  “It takes a while to learn the lingo.”

  There was a whirr of machinery from astern.

  “Sir, we’re losing the contacts.”

  Jeff expected Driscoll to look worried but he merely nodded.

  “Isn’t that a problem?” he tentatively asked.

  “No, what we’re getting is coming through our towed passive array,” Driscoll explained. “It’s towed astern of us on fifteen-hundred metres of cable, which puts it further away from any interference from the ship.”

  “I see.”

  “It doesn’t have much mass, but it mucks up manoeuvring if it’s still spooled out when we try to turn.” As the Lieutenant spoke, Jeff realised that in fact Driscoll was concerned. There was a nervous energy in the Lieutenant, which was expressing itself through talk. “The other thing is if it is left spooled out, we’d likely fry it with our engine plume. But with it in, we’re relying on the ship’s built in passive sensors, which means we’re basically blind.”

  The whine from astern stopped.

  “The array’s run in, sir,” reported Headey.

  “Helm. Make the turn when you’re ready.”

  K7 turned and Jeff was forced to grab wildly for a hand bar as one of his boot magnets lost traction.

  “As soon as we’ve stabilised our track, spool the array back out again. Helm, keep an eye on the radiators.”

  “Aye sir.” came two separate replies.

  “Radiators?” Jeff murmured as the mechanical whine started up again.

  “We have to radiate off our waste heat. If we use the radiator facing away from the contact, then hopefully they won’t spot us. Now hush up,” Driscoll replied, Jeff hadn’t realised he’d spoken.

  Five days out from Junction Station, we have perhaps finally found our quarry. Jeff found himself shifting into newscast mode. We are currently orbiting the planet… he’d have to check its name afterwards, and we have detected something at the edge of our sensor range. Now we are altering course to investigate. In doing so we have both blinded ourselves and made it more likely that we will be detected. These are as you can appreciate tense moments.

  That was good, Jeff thought to himself, very good in fact. He needed to get it down before he forgot it. Okay he’d still need filmed pictures of the action but he could probably talk Driscoll into restaging that later. His pencil scratched furiously on the paper.

  “Contact reacquired,” reported one of the sensor operators.

  “Any change in profile?”

  “That’s… negative, sir. The profiles remain constant.”

  “Run a track projection. How close are we going to get?” Driscoll asked.

  “Calculating now, sir.” There was a pause, just long enough for Jeff to catch up with events. “We’re going to get to within somewhere between one point one and one point two light seconds of the contacts, sir. Closest convergence will be in approximately one-hundred-and-ten minutes.”

  “That’s plenty close enough,” Driscoll said half to himself.

  We have completed our turn without apparent detection. Now comes the careful approach, to gather whatever information is available. That wasn’t quite as good and two hours was way too long to keep the viewer interested. He’d have to brush over that in the recording.

  “It’s definitely three contacts, sir,” said the sensor operator. “Two are Nameless escorts and the third doesn’t match any known profile.”

  Jeff had kind of expected a eureka moment when suddenly they were close enough to see all. Instead it was a slow, boring-to-watch, process where the quality of the information they were getting only gradually improved.

  “Ship?” asked Driscoll, who had unbelted himself from his seat and been looking over the shoulder of the senior sensor operator for about an hour.

  “I don’t think so, sir,”
the operator replied. “We’re getting pretty clear solar reflection from the escorts. The third one is giving very little reflection and showing no sign of engine emissions.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They’re just beyond the Blue Line, sir. So they can presumably jump out at any time.”

  “What about cameras. Are we close enough for the cameras?”

  “We’re in the planet’s shadow, so we’re still not getting much, sir. Estimate another twenty minutes before we get anything useful.”

  “New contacts!” called out another sensor operator. “Three contacts bearing two, six, three dash zero, zero, one.” Driscoll spun around at the call. “Range four light seconds, they’re climbing away from the planet.”

  “What’s their track?” Driscoll snapped.

  “Their current track will see them rendezvous with the first three in about an hour.”

  Jeff continued to watch the fleet personnel at work, trying to describe the mood and the feel of the moment to his future audience. When he looked down the page though, it was covered with words like ‘slow’, ‘steady’ and ‘careful’. This was probably another bit that would need either brushed over or sexed up.

  It was only as they reached the point of their closest approach that the external cameras could finally get a decent picture. There were two escorts, floating motionless in space. Jeff had already seen fleet released publicity shots of Nameless ships just like these, including some exciting images of ones coming apart under fire. However this was his first time seeing humanity’s enemy in the flesh, so to speak. All of the pictures were in greyscale as the computer apparently wasn’t programmed to add colour. Whichever crewman was controlling the camera seemed to be more interested in the third object however and even Jeff could see that this was something new. He cast his camera a brief longing look, before starting to draw what he could see. Who’d have ever though those school art classes would prove useful?

  It seemed to be an open lattice structure, shaped like a ring, with a boxy bit on top. There seemed to be pointy bits on the inner surface of the ring directed inwards. If he didn’t get hold of a picture he’d have to get Driscoll to give a proper military description. ‘Pointy bits’ lacked a certain something.

  “The computer is estimating the diameter of the object to be about three-hundred metres. Not a perfect ring though, it’s wider than it is tall,” reported Headey.

  “What do you think it is?” Jeff quietly inquired.

  “Don’t know,” Driscoll replied distractedly. “Might be the basic framing of a space station. No sign of work in progress though. Odd.”

  “Sir,” the helmsman called out, “we’ve reached the point of our closest approach. Range is starting to open again.”

  “Are we going to come around again to take another look?” Jeff asked.

  “No,” Driscoll said continuing to stare at the display, before turning and pushing himself towards his seat. “No,” he repeated more decisively. “We’ve got as much as we’re going to get here. We’ll now make a quiet exit. We’ll head out well beyond the Red Line and make our jump out tomorrow evening. Headquarters might choose to send another scout to take a second look at whatever that framework is, or they might send a cruiser squadron to flatten it.”

  “So that’s the excitement done?” Jeff replied. It was almost a disappointment. Almost.

  “If we’re smart. The only other thing is those three approaching ships. We’ll see what they’re up to before we get out of range. That’s about thirty minutes away.”

  “Do you mind if I go below to write up my notes and come back for that?”

  “Go right ahead. I’ll call you.”

  Driscoll was as good as his word. Jeff had managed to use the time productively but the ending was still pretty weak, so hopefully the approaching ships would give him some material. Three starships were already visible on the visual display when he came back to the Bridge. They looked to be another two Nameless escorts plus a ship that looked different.

  “How come we can see these ones?” he asked.

  “Their engines are firing,” Driscoll replied. “That gives the cameras enough light to work with. The third one looks to be a hydrogen skimmer, probably harvesting fuel from the atmosphere of the planet. Although why are their engines still firing?” the last part Driscoll was clearly asking himself.

  “They’re decelerating, sir but unless they break hard in the next few minutes, they’re going to overshoot or collide with the framework,” Headey said.

  “Weird.” Driscoll muttered.

  “Sir,” said one of the other operators, “I’m getting some new readings from the framework.”

  “What kind?”

  “Magnetic anomalies plus some radiation. The computer doesn’t have any idea what it is.”

  “Record it. Maybe Headquarters will have a better idea.”

  Silence returned to the bridge. Jeff was starting to consider going back to his note writing when suddenly Headey let out a gasp of surprise. On the visual display the three approaching ships were now brightly lit up. The picture swiftly panned to the left, onto the empty framework - except it wasn’t empty anymore. The space inside the ring was filled with a bright blue and white light which formed into a funnel.”

  “What in the name of God!” Driscoll muttered. “Headey, any ideas?”

  “Energy field of some description, sir.”

  “I figured that bit out myself!” Driscoll practically snarled back at him.

  Jeff’s pencil was working madly. This was just the big ending his newscast would need: previously unseen alien tech. This was gold, absolute gold. Then it got better. The harvester and its escort passed through the ring and the energy field, and one by one they faded out and vanished.

  “Well, well,” Driscoll commented calmly, with a slight smile. “Was that what it looked like?”

  “Confirmed, profile matched jump out.”

  “It’s some kind of fixed jump gate system,” Driscoll said.

  “Didn’t think that was possible, sir.” Headey replied. “You need to have a jump drive to keep the conduit open.

  “Their jump drives must be more different than we thought,” Driscoll replied with a shake of his head. “That’s going to blow holes in a few theories.”

  “Skipper! That thing emitted a burst of protons as each ship went through. We’re getting reflections off our hull!” Headey suddenly exclaimed.

  Jeff felt the mood on the bridge shift abruptly, from one of wonder to… not quite anxiety but something close.

  “Oh hell,” Driscoll replied as he pushed himself back into his seat. “Bridge, Engineering. Prepare to spin up the reactor. Helm, prepare to lay in direct course for the Red Line.”

  “What! What!” Jeff blurted out.

  “If we’ve had bounce back they might have spotted us and if they have then we might be screwed,” Driscoll replied tightly, his eyes locked on the main display. “Sensors keep a sharp eye on those ships.”

  “Heading change! One of the escorts has just lit off its drive! They’ve seen us!” Headey shouted.

  “Bridge, Engineering. Full power, now! Helm, go full burn. Headey cut loose the array. Radar. Go active. Visors down gentlemen.” Driscoll unleashed a stream of orders.

  As soon as he heard the magic words Jeff grabbed for his camera.

  Built into the towed array’s winch was a pair explosive shaped charges. These were now pressed up against the cable and fired with a sharp crack. As the cable parted, at the other end, the array reacted to the loss of contact with K7’s computer by self-destructing. A security procedure, in this case probably not necessary since a second or two later the main engine fired and hosed the fragments with plasma.

  On the bridge Jeff heard the sharp crack and a growing rumble, which recognised as the engines. The crack of the explosives might have unnerved him but now he had his camera he was too busy to pay much attention to that kind of thing. Around the bridge there was a series o
f sharp clicks as the crew closed the visors of their survival suits. Jeff panned his camera around them.

  “We have just observed previously unknown alien technology in operation,” he told his future audience breathlessly. “But a side effect of this has seen our position compromised.” ‘Compromised’ - that was a good military word, made people feel included. “At this point discretion is the better part of valour and Lieutenant Driscoll must use his ship’s great speed to escape.”

  With the engine firing there was a growing gravity effect and abruptly Jeff found his boot magnets losing traction as he slid backwards. The bridge bulkhead brought him to a halt with a bump.

  “Contact separation! We have incoming!” Headey called out.

  “Bridge to Engineering, lose the engine safeties. I want full power,” Driscoll ordered. In response the roar of the engines grew louder and Jeff found himself being pushed uncomfortably hard into the bulkhead. On the main radar display he could see four small contacts approaching them, chasing directly after K7 and slowly overhauling. Driscoll watched the display intently, then suddenly barked out.

  “Countermeasures, full spread! Helm, right! Right…. Right… Right.. Right! RIGHT! RIGHT!”

  Jeff clung to a handle with one hand and his camera with the other as the ship corkscrewed madly. The courier’s hull keened and groaned at the mistreatment. Through the forward view port he caught a brief glimpse of a missile burn past them.

  “We’ve just dodged four missiles the Nameless have fired at us!” he exclaimed for the camera. He spoke too soon.

  It wasn’t a direct hit. K7 wouldn’t have survived that. One missile did burst frighteningly close and sent out a spray of shrapnel, some of which hit the courier. The thin hull plating provided no real resistance as the missile fragments went clean through. On the bridge there were a pair of bangs as a thumb sized hole appeared in the left wall of the bridge, with a matching one on the right. Air started to rush noisily out. When his ears popped Jeff belatedly remembered to close the visor of his survival suit.