The staff officer escorted her to a set of medical labs, where she was handed over like a package to another officer. Inside a number of fleet, marine and national military officers were all waiting. She’d learned a lot about uniforms in the past few months, enough to know that these were very senior individuals. She had mostly resigned herself to military service but if there was one damn thing she wasn’t going to do, it was salute.
“… the count at the moment is only very provisional, sir,” a staff captain was saying as she entered.
“Accepted Captain, what’s the count?” said an elderly man in a Battle Fleet admiral’s uniform. He inclined his head as another staff officer whispered into his ear.
“Four-hundred and twenty-two dead, wounded or currently missing.” said the staff captain.
“After a day like today,” one of the national officers said, “that’s not actually that bad.”
Not bad! Alice thought, but she was too tired to openly voice any objections.
“Personally ammunition, particularly that of artillery, is more of a concern to me,” said a marine colonel, “We burned through nearly twenty percent of our stock today. At that rate, the guns will be reduced to offensive language by the end of the week. ”
“Yeah but we took out literally one hundred percent of their infantry committed to the assault,” another officer said.
“Because they kept coming until they were all dead. How the hell can any intelligent race accept casualties on that level?”
“Gentlemen, I may be able to offer an explanation,” said the old admiral. “Ms Peats, I’m glad to see you are still on your feet. I understand you were a member of the Harbinger expedition when the Centaur planet was discovered.” The rest of the officers turned to look at her. Alice was too tired and dirty to be intimidated.
“Yes, that’s right,” she replied.
“Good, we’ve got the right one,” he said turning. “Please all of you, follow me.”
He led them into a lab and straight away Alice could guess what they wanted her for. It was one of the creatures that had been killing them all day, lying on a mortuary slab.
“Ms Peats,” the admiral asked, “what can you tell me about this thing?”
“Admiral, I’m a language specialist not a…” she started to object.
“I know Ms Peats,” the admiral cut her off. “Dr Moir or Professor Bhaile would have been my first choices, but she’s had a psychological breakdown and he’s missing presumed dead.” Distractedly he then added: “Sorry about what happened to your colleagues. Just tell me what you see.”
Alice walked carefully around the table. Rationally she knew that it was extremely dead, but on an emotional level she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. In their last localised attack, several broke through into the section of the trench she was working in, just as the Indians forced their way up to the forward trenches. She found herself in the middle of probably the last firefight of the day. One of the attackers, riddled full of holes, collapsed on top of her, its sheer bulk enough to crack her ribs.
Only now, with this specimen, did she get a chance to look at one closely. It was big, perhaps two and a half metres in length. The skin was a blotchy brown with a few clumps of mangy fur here and there. Its six limbs were almost grossly muscled. The rear two were definitely legs and the pair at the front were arms, while the middle pair seemed to be a halfway house in terms of functionality, designed for walking yet could clearly grasp. The almost equine head was about the same size as a human’s but seemed small in proportion to its body and thickly muscled neck. After a moment she realised that what she had thought was a helmet, was in fact a metal housing that was surgically attached to its head. Several wires and tubes came out of the housing and disappeared into its skull. Steeling herself, Alice turned the head towards her. As she looked into its dead eyes, she knew what it was. Or at least what it had been. She stepped back from the slab, wiping her hands on her trousers.
“Well?” the admiral.
“I know what it is,” Alice replied without taking her eyes off the dead thing.
“It’s a Centaur, isn’t it?” someone asked.
“No. But it is from their planet,” she replied.
“Centaur?” said one of the national military officers. “The Harbinger reported their planet had been depopulated.”
“It has been,” Alice replied sharply before continuing more softly. “Two weeks after we made our first landing we found a small group of these things. At first we thought we’d found some members of the city builders who had somehow survived the genocide. It was only when we managed to get close that we realised they were animals, evolutionary cousins. They are to the centaurs what a gorilla is to us.”
“So not the city builders themselves?” the admiral asked.
“No.”
“Ms Peats, you told us yourself that your speciality is languages, not biology,” the speaker was a middle aged woman, the only one present not in uniform.
“We found one that had died of natural causes Miss…” Alice replied
“Governor Reynolds,” the woman offered.
“Once it was examined the differences were as obvious as those between a human and a gorilla.”
“You knew?” This time the Governor’s question was directed to the admiral.
“Suspected,” he replied. “I read the Harbinger report months ago. I don’t have time to go through it again. I knew that some of the civilian complement from the ship were here at Douglas.”
“So this thing isn’t a Nameless?” someone asked.
“No,” Alice said. “It’s one of their victims. This thing was an animal. They’ve turned it into a soldier.”
“Going by what my science personnel and Ms Peats say, it’s a bio-engineered life form, one that uses an animal from the centaur planet as a template. It’s little more than a biological robot. No wonder they can take such a casual attitude to their losses. Thank you Ms Peats.” The tone of dismissal was clear.
“We’ll be lucky if we make it to the end of the month,” Alice heard someone mutter as she was hustled out.
Chapter Thirteen
The Front
15th May 2067
The tug and the battered hull of the Anubis were briefly silhouetted against the light from the jump portal before it closed and they disappeared from the system.
“Bridge, Sensors. Jump out successful,” came the report across the intercom.
“Thank you Sensors,” Crowe replied as the bridge’s main holo returned to the default view of the surrounding sphere of space up to three light seconds away. The sphere was mostly blank, aside from the small cluster of green blips at the very centre of the display and a red line a short way behind them, indicating the safe jump out distance from the planet Phyose.
“Coms, Bridge. Signal from flagship. All ships to reverse course at time zero nine, two, three. Fighters to take up positions at one hundred K.”
“Confirm receipt of message.”
The squadrons’ fighters had clearly heard the transmission and were already moving away to put themselves astern of the formation when it started to move back toward the planet. Practice makes bloody perfect, Crowe thought to himself as he waited for the appointed time to make their turn. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to escort a tug towing a broken starship out past the Red Line and odds were, it wouldn’t be the last. Anubis had only returned to service a month earlier after damage sustained at Alpha Centauri and now she was already heading back to Earth, minus all four of her engines and about forty percent of her crew. Yet they’d been lucky. When the cap ship missile smashed into her drive section one of the cruiser’s reactors stayed online. Still able to put down defensive fire, that bought enough time to get a tug in and tow her out of the combat zone. The Nameless had been running low on missiles and not able to put down the weight of fire required to press their advantage. Still it had been a result for them and a wounded bird offered further opportunities.
The little tug that had been assigned the task of towing Anubis back to Earth was really a bit small for the job, so lugging the heavy cruiser out of Phyose’s gravity well had taken over a day. It gave plenty of time for the Nameless picket at the edge of the system to observe and report.
“Bridge, Navigation. We are at time stamp zero nine, two, two. Reversing course in one minute, brace for thrust.”
“Understood Navigation. Bridge, Fire Control, swing out guns.”
The cruiser’s gun turrets swung out, so at least one weapon mount was pointed in the direction of any possible threat. On the holo Deimos and the other six ships that had escorted Anubis out swung round and started to break hard. Crowe could feel himself pressed into his seat and the deck tremble as the engines went to one hundred percent power. There was silence across the bridge command net as everyone focused intently on their jobs.
Engines flaring, Deimos and the rest of the squadron slowed, before coming briefly to a relative halt, then began to accelerate back towards the planet. It was not until seven hours after Anubis’s departure and the squadron was well inside the planet’s mass shadow that they could afford to relax.
___________________
“A quiet trip out then I hear,” the deck chief grunted as he pulled himself over via one of the guide wires.
“Yes, not a peep from them,” Alanna replied as she signed the work order that handed D for Dubious over to the maintenance personnel on Junction Station. The fighter was overdue for an overhaul but for various reasons it had kept getting put off.
“Just as well it was,” Schurenhofer said from the personnel hatch as she heaved out their bags. “I for one do not want to go into a fight with a useless thruster assembly before the shooting has even started!”
“Starboard side thruster assembly shut down shortly after our launch,” Alanna said by way of explanation.
“Not for the first time,” Schurenhofer added.
“I see in the notes. It’s been replaced,” said the chief, studying his pad.
“It got damaged…”
“Ripped off,” Schurenhofer interjected.
“…when we arrived here.”
“And it’s still giving trouble?” the chief grunted. “Okay, we’ll look into it.”
“How long?” Alanna asked.
“We haven’t got a lot else going on, so a day. A replacement has been drawn down from the reserves, just in case you have to fly off.”
As they climbed down into the centrifuge of Junction Station, Alanna was already starting to miss her fighter. Sure D for Dubious was probably the same as every other Mk III Raven in existence but she’d got very used it. Schurenhofer on the other hand was much less forgiving.
“I’m all in favour of keeping the new one and leaving stores with that tin can,” she grumbled from above.
“Yes, or we could just accept that isn’t going to happen,” Alanna replied as they reached the centrifuge’s main habitation deck. She checked her coms. “They’re prepping the fighter now. We might as well kill time while we’re waiting and get a drink.” Before the war Junction had been a civilian station and there were still signs of that such as the decorative paintings of vines that wound along the bulkheads. There was still the odd civilian on the station too, none of them the pre-war inhabitants for reasons no one liked talking about, just contractors bought in to work the hydrogen plant. There were certain members of the Deimos crew who would never set foot on the station.
Walking into the main canteen Alanna was immediately hailed from the direction of fighter’s corner.
Lieutenant Quinn, second-in-command of the station’s fighter complement had his feet up on one of the tables, with a drink in one hand and a reading pad in the other.
“Alanna! What brings you over here?” he asked, beckoning for another drink.
“Bringing Dubious in for an overhaul,” Alanna replied sitting down.
“What fell off this time?”
“Technically everything is still attached - just not working.”
“I was sorry to hear about Lieutenant Deyn,” Quinn said.
“Yeah,” Alanna paused, remembering the moment when the icon for Deyn’s fighter had blinked out. “He was a nice guy but never much of a fighter pilot. He over thought things,” she shrugged and changed the subject. “So what have you heard?”
Quinn accepted the change of subject. That was just the way of things. People who got killed maybe got brief mentions for a while but then the living got on with being alive.
“Word is you and your lot are on the way back out again,” Quinn replied.
“Strike or patrol?”
“Strike. The eggshells have found things the Admiral wants squished.”
“I prefer strike missions,” Alanna replied taking a sip of her drink. “I like getting the first shot off. What else is going on?”
“A courier sneaked in while Anubis was busy getting all the attention. It had the mail and a couple of Hollywood’s latest offerings.”
“Anything good?”
“A Western, a sci-fi actioner, a chick flick, oh plus some song and dance from Bollywood.”
Alanna’s eyes lit up at chick flick.
“Have you no shame?” Quinn laughed.
“I’m a girl,” Alanna replied with a grin. “I’m allowed to like chick flicks. Can’t stand science fiction though.”
___________________
Ronan Crowe waited patiently outside the office of Admiral Laura Lewis, his cap resting on his knee, his mind drifting. Deimos was holding position at the outer marker and for the time being it was all quiet on this bit of the Junction Front. It wouldn’t last of course. It never did. All you could do was enjoy those quiet moments.
“Captain Crowe,” said a staff officer. “The Admiral will see you now.”
On entering the office Lewis greeted him with a welcoming smile. She was a very different person from her dour husband. Before the war she’d been operations head of Battle Fleet’s sister organisation , the Science Directorate. Seconded to them with Mississippi, Crowe had known her quite well. Now she was senior officer for Junction and its section of the front. Lewis had claimed for herself an office on the outer face of Junction’s centrifuge and through the hatch he could see the flare of an approaching hydrogen skimmer.
“Ronan, good to see you again, and in the flesh,” she said offering a hand.
“Thank you Ma’am, what can I do for you?”
“We’ll just hold a mo, Admiral Kanter is due to join us in a minute. Ah, here he is, hello Conrad.”
“Laura, Captain Crowe,” Admiral Kanter was operational commander of Junction Station’s combat units.
Once they were all settled Lewis began.
“Unless the grapevine has suffered a rare breakdown you’ve probably heard that a courier has arrived. As well the usual stuff we’ve received several updates from Headquarters, some instructions and piece of good news. Firstly we’ll start with the good. Captain this came for you.” She slid a paper envelope across the desk to Crowe. He took a sharp breath. To transport a piece of paper across interstellar distance was a grossly inefficient means of transmitting information and the fleet only did it for a very limited number of reasons. Carefully he took the envelope, opened it and read the half dozen lines.
“Congratulations… Commodore,” said Laura with a smile.
“Thank you, Ma’am…”
“Keep reading, Commodore,” Kanter advised with a matching smile.
He’d initially managed to look past it but there it was: ‘This promotion is establishment.’ So unlike so many it wasn’t a ‘hostilities only’ promotion. This was permanent.
“If the war ends tomorrow,” Laura said cheerfully, “I’ll have to start saluting you. Congratulations again Ronan. After all you’ve done, hell after the way you were treated after the Mississippi, you deserve it.”
“Thank you, both of you,” Crowe stuttered. Inwardly he shook his head in disbelief. He’d lon
g accepted that the rank of Captain would be where he peaked in the fleet and less than a year ago he had been about to resign his commission. Now the fleet had put him firmly onto the flag rank track.
“Unfortunately that is pretty much where the good news finishes,” Laura continued after a moment. “Things seem to have quietened down around Hydra Station. Whatever else happens, it looks like the Nameless aren’t quite ready to pick a fight with the Aèllr, so the angles there have been cut way down. The Nameless have learned from past experience that coming in here after us, suits us just fine. So the axis of their assault has shifted to Rosa. Now on the positive side, Headquarters isn’t taking any ships off us but on the negative, those reinforcements we were expecting are going elsewhere. Also Headquarters has some new assignments for us.”
The holo emitter in the desk lit up displaying the local star systems. “Here’s the Nameless’s known route from the direction of Landfall, with the gates all along it.” She traced her finger along the line of star systems, “until it gets to here, opposite Junction. Then it spreads out, left and right, as well as up and down, giving them a supply line that is now covering the front. We’ve been burning them where we come across them but since they introduced those new smaller prefabricated gateways, they’ve been putting them up faster than we can knock them down.”
“At this stage,” Kanter interjected, “they have so many gates along the front, it’s a virtual lattice. Knocking out even a cluster doesn’t achieve much and with so many, the Nameless have a lot of flexibility for moving supplies forward.”
“Their main supply artery enters the lattice in front of us. And so far, logistics has been their Achilles heel. Those missiles of theirs are good but they need a lot of them,” Laura continued. “Headquarters wants us to relieve pressure on Rosa by making a concerted attempt to dismember the local gate network.” she gestured at the holo again, “So we are going to mount a series of attacks. Admiral Kanter will be hitting a number of the frontline gates, with the primary objective of drawing in the local Nameless forces. The strikeboat carrier Vicksburg and her escort will be doing distant strikes. Ronan, you will be taking Deimos, Valkyrie, Meili and two of the destroyers out to a distance of fifteen light years from Junction, where the main artery starts to spread out. Start taking down gates and if at all possible, the construction ships that put them back up. If we can smash enough gates quickly enough, then we overload their ability to effect repairs and get supplies to the forces assaulting Rosa.”
The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) Page 26