“How will we know?” Callahan asked, “I mean, whether the Nameless think that?”
“They took this seriously. Their close range jump in with the inevitable casualties proved that. But if they don’t put in another contact before the convoy can jump, then we have probably failed.”
Wingate motioned with his maimed hand towards a large group of red blips close to Earth. The main Nameless Fleet, a light minute out from Earth, facing the Home Fleet, which was now holding position just inside the Earth Red Line. In their relative positions the two fleets were for the moment effectively neutralising each other, neither allowing the other the freedom to act. Which left the field open to the smaller vessels on each side. The fighters from Earth were preparing to fly to Saturn, as were those from the carriers Dauntless and Huascar, all to support the last push.
“There has to be one more serious assault and the convoy has to get through it without significant extra damage.”
“What if...” Callahan’s question trailed off.
“We don’t have the fuel to try this again,” Wingate said.
___________________________
The convoy continued to accelerate away from Tethys. A few shots from the heavy laser cannons mounted on the surface had been enough to persuade the shadowing Nameless scouts to keep their distance. For an hour Willis and the rest of the crew had been able to relax – a little.
“We’ve lucky so far,” Dandolo said across the coms link, “although God knows we’re within our rights not to feel it.”
“I know I’m not,” Ozo said.
“We haven’t lost any of the escort,” Dandolo continued, “and we haven’t lost the ammunition ship. For that we can give thanks to which ever higher power looked out for us.”
Willis winced. The fully loaded ammunition ship Numancia was supposed to have been on the disengaged side of the convoy, but in the chaos of battle she had found herself directly in the line of fire. Before Black Prince had come alongside her, a missile had smashed into an almost full ammunition bunker. By some miracle, it had failed to cause any secondary detonations. With all hell breaking loose, no one realised it until the shooting stopped and the Numancia’s very frightened looking captain reported in. Given that the distance between Numancia and Black Prince had been as little as twenty kilometres, Willis didn’t like to dwell on the damage that a detonating ten thousand ton starship suddenly transformed into shrapnel might have inflicted on them.
“But now we’ll have to make the last sprint,” Dandolo continued, “and odds are that’s exactly what it will be. Commander Valance, I know you’ve been trying to keep your ammunition expenditure under control, but from here on in, hold nothing back. Same goes for the rest of you.”
Valance nodded.
“For the record sir, my magazines are now at forty two percent,” he said.
“Understood Commander,” Dandolo replied. “One last thing, I want each ship to generate its own jump solution. The transports will jump as soon as they clear the Red Line.”
“That runs the risk of leaving someone behind it they lose their jump drive at the wrong moment,” Ozo warned.
“I’m aware of that, but the alternative is to go down the all or nothing route,” Dandolo said. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
“I see them!” Willis snapped before the sensor officer could open his mouth. On the holo dead ahead, just inside the Red Line, a dozen Nameless ships, a mix of cruisers, escorts and a single carrier dropped into real space. Four fighters from the Dauntless were slowly cruising along the line and they immediately accelerated in. The Nameless carrier spewed fighters and within moments a vicious dogfight erupted.
“Contact separation, we have incoming.”
The Saturn fighters pacing along ahead went full burn to get out far enough ahead to thin the first missile salvo. The convoy started to turn enough to present broadside and still make forward progress. On the holo, more Nameless ships started to jump in, at least twenty in total and short of turning one eighty, the convoy was on course to charge into the middle of them.
Willis had to swallow hard to generate enough moisture to speak.
“Bridge, Fire Control. Engage when ready.”
There was an eruption of flame and explosions as flak rounds and plasma bolts shattered missiles and clawed them out of space. Three escorts tried to jump in behind and were set upon by the squadron of American fighters that had been pacing along astern. More fighters, some from Earth and others from the carriers, fed into the fight as more Nameless ships arrived.
One of the empty transports took a direct hit, its escape pods hurtling away as it tumbled out of formation and broke up as it went. The destroyer Olstyn took two hits in quick succession that wrecked her armament, but grimly held her place in the formation. Still they crept closer to the Red Line. Fortitude and the heavy cruisers, Loki and Osiris jumped in, their guns stabbing out even as they emerged from jump space. Alien ships scrambled clear as plasma bolts burned towards them. A Nameless carrier and a pair of cruisers were badly hit before more of their ships arrived around them and forced the battleship to jump away.
“New contacts!” the sensor officer’s voice was hoarse. They were now only minutes away from jump out but every ship’s ammunition magazine was all but empty. Most of the Nameless ships had jumped away, their missiles expended, several of them nursing wounds from the human fighters that had also now largely withdrawn. In this marathon they were down to the last few contenders.
Willis glanced at the navigation display; they were passing through the Red Line now. In theory, a jump was possible, but the gradient of risk from safe to suicidal was so steep that now wasn’t the time. A moment later she wondered if that was true. There were six new arrivals, two capital ships dead ahead and a pair of cruisers on either flank. The cap ships were firing as they arrived. Two cap ship missiles, clearly not yet far enough into real space disintegrated. The rest along with a swarm of smaller missiles roared down as every human ship fired all available weapons and launched the last of their chaff.
Minstrel couldn’t turn fast enough. Her forward defence consisted of only a few turret-mounted laser cannons, but she could lay down more chaff than even a battleship. With only moments to decide, Commander Valance didn’t attempt to turn to line up a broadside and instead presented only the ship’s bows and the smallest possible target cross section. On Black Prince, Willis saw a cap ship missile graze the barrage ship’s starboard side, breaking up and ripping open the side as it went, while the impact of smaller missiles left multiple craters in her hull.
“Evasive manoeuvres, countermeasures full spread!” Willis bellowed. Black Prince started to jolt around violently as missiles burned past them.
“Saladin, this is Minstrel. We’ve taken heavy damage. The starboard side battery is wrecked.” Valance was shouting directly across the command channel.
Willis spoke without thinking.
“Minstrel, do you still have your jump drive?” she demanded.
“Yes, thank God!”
“Turn and present your port side to the cap ships, coast in and give them everything as you go!”
“Got it,” Valance replied. Minstrel’s engines spluttered out as her thrusters fired and, swinging on her own axis, brought the undamaged port battery to bear. Approaching side on, she opened fire. The second salvo from the cap ships ran into a wall of fire it could not penetrate as the cruisers held off their counterparts on the flanks. One of their surviving tankers blinked out as it jumped. Within seconds the other survivors disappeared, leaving only the escort. A break between salvos was enough for them to make their own escape.
___________________________
D for Dubious coasted slowly along the starboard flank of the cruiser Black Prince, the fighter’s spotlight playing across the hull. Each time they came across significant damage, Alanna would pause the beam.
“Black Prince, are you getting this?” she asked.
“Confirmed Dubious,
the laser hook up is stable.”
“Jesus, what a mess,” Schurenhofer muttered.
Alanna nodded in agreement. The starboard side had taken the worst of the onslaught, its armoured belt punctured and scored. The wing on that side was reduced to little more than the underlying lattice, covered by the frozen remains of non-critical supplies that had been stored within, all of it ending in the shattered remnants of the wingtip manoeuvring engine. The coms officer on board the cruiser must have heard Schurenhofer.
“Looks worse on the outside than it does on the inside. Armour kept most of it out.”
“Did you lose anyone?”
“Three in sickbay, two in the morgue. Looks like the starboard side belt armour will have to be replaced, but at least with an Austerity class ship that won’t be too hard.”
“Provided you get back to a ship yard,” Schurenhofer reminded him.
Whoever he was, the coms officer seemed to have regained his calm pretty quickly. Two hours earlier Alanna had been on the bridge of Dauntless when the convoy started appearing on radar. Separate jumps meant they were scattered across fifty thousand kilometres, in response to which the carrier’s fighters and destroyers had rapidly set out to shepherd them back together. Not that it was entirely necessary. Like scattered ducklings, the transports were already beginning to cluster back together for protection when their escorts started to arrive.
A few minutes after completing its jump, the crew of the Olstyn abandoned ship as the destroyer lost power. Priority for Alanna and the rest of the fighters became external surveys of the surviving ships.
“Just as well the bastards don’t seem to be able to come after us out here,” the coms officer said as Dubious continued to move along the flank.
“Yep,” Alanna replied, “although they bloody try to compensate by chasing us around while we’re in-system.”
That had been a hot topic of conversation on the carrier between those who wondered why and those who were just glad of it.
“A bit of peace and quiet will do us good before it’s time for ‘once more unto the breach dear friends,’” continued the blasé coms officer.
“When it happens, we’ll be right behind you,” Alanna said as Dubious passed the end of the cruiser. “That’s it Black Prince, I’m moving on.” She hesitated for a moment before adding: “Look me up when we’re all back on Earth and we can share stories.”
“Just as long as its’ only stories. Otherwise my fiancé might object. Look after yourself, Dubious. This is Black Prince over and out.”
___________________________
Willis had overheard the conversation between her coms officer and the departing fighter and let it pass without comment. After the intensity of combat, the crew was experiencing what she always thought of as the high of survival. It would fade pretty quickly, but there wouldn’t be time for survivor’s guilt, not before they went in again.
“How bad is it, Commander?” Dandolo asked across the conference link.
On the screen, Valance looked like he’d come off second best in a bar room brawl. One eyebrow was being held together with glue stitches and he had a black eye.
“Multiple ruptures in the outer hull, so about forty percent of internal sections are no longer capable of holding pressure. Our structural integrity is not compromised though – chalk that one up as the advantage of a freighter hull. Where it gets bad is with the armament. The starboard side battery is basically cabbaged. My gunner reports we have just twelve of our original forty guns. But to be honest, the whole thing took such a jolt I have no confidence in the automatic loaders.”
“What about your port side?” Dandolo said. “And your engines?”
“Two guns down to port, but the rest definitely still work. Our engines took some damage, but I can keep pace with the transports.”
“Alright Commander, patch her up as best you can. We’ll just have to try to favour the enemy to port. Anything else, anyone?”
“Yes,” Captain Ozo replied, looking deeply unhappy. “I’ve got problems with one of our reactors. I don’t know whether it’s damage or a construction problem, but it keeps losing coolant pressure.”
“Can you fight?”
“Yes, sir, we can. Or at least we can get to the fight.”
“That will have to do. Faith, what about you?”
“The armour of my starboard belt is in bad shape and I’ve lost several point defence guns on that side. Like Minstrel, we’ll need to present our port side whenever we can.”
“I understand, Captain. We’ll be changing sides, so everyone gets a chance to balance their damage if nothing else.”
It was a weak joke but it got a few smiles.
“We’ve got twenty hours before we make our run in and I’m sorry to say but getting in clean is not an option. All right everyone, replenish your magazines and get some rest. Captain Willis, can I have a private word?”
Willis kept her face impassive, but internally winced.
“I expect you know what this is about – issuing orders directly to Minstrel.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry, I…”
“It was the right order to give,” Dandolo interrupted, “but skipping the chain of command like that, could have seriously bollixed everything up in the middle of a firefight. That’s something they beat into us all in training. That said, success justifies a hell of a lot.”
He paused and gave her a sympathetic smile.
“I know that on your last posting you were effectively a Commodore, just without the rank or pay, so I appreciate it’s hard to step down when you’ve been used to making the tough calls. Just know when to show initiative and when to toe the line. The other thing is I’ve had a signal from Fortitude. Her coms section has taken a knock and can’t be relied on from here. You have more experience than either the captains of the Loki or Osiris, so you’re next in line of command for the squadron.”
___________________________
“Commodore?”
“Hmm?”
Crowe looked up from his reading and saw Commander Bhudraja was standing in the hatch with a computer pad in his hand.
“Are you running post?” Crowe asked.
“A chance to straighten my legs sir,” Bhudraja replied as he passed the pad over. “Signal from Warspite. The convoy made it out.”
“Thank God for that,” Crowe muttered. “They should have sent a proper flak cruiser, not ships made up of spare parts.”
The dust thrown up by their landing had finally settled, but in doing so had completely coated the panels of the passive sensor arrays. Even keeping the communications lasers operational so they could get downloads from the orbiting satellites had meant sending out a man in a suit with the radio physically deactivated. Once they powered up, they could run a charge across the hull to repel the particles, but until then Deimos was basically blind.
Crowe read down the orders from Warspite. His frown deepened as he worked his way down.
“What does the Chief say about cold starting the reactors?” he asked, looking up.
“Since he’s been alternating them, twenty minutes,” Bhudraja replied. “He also said the reactors aren’t the biggest problem. The engine control surfaces have been in deep cold for over a month. They need thirty minutes to warm before we dare go full thrust.”
“No crash starts then?” Crowe asked.
It wasn’t really a question. The thermal shock of a crash start was more or less guaranteed to cost a ship a couple of control surfaces. But for a ship taking off, even in such low gravity, the effect on directional control could be disastrous. A ground loop by a starship would undoubtedly be interesting to watch, but only as long as it was happening to someone else!
“The Chief said you can try it, so long as he can sit in an escape pod when you do.”
“Not that we’ll have to,” Crowe tossed the pad down onto the desk. “The Admiral has decided we’re only to arrive at Earth thirty minutes after the convoy jumps in.”
> “That’ll keep them heavily engaged for an extended period before…”
“Before any help turns up,” Crowe finished for him. “The rest of the fleet can’t move up to support them without tipping our hand and leaving the Nameless free to attack Earth on the opposite side of the planet. Those poor bastards are being thrown under a bus to get the Nameless to go deep enough into the Earth’s mass shadow to get pinned. And the odds are most of them are smart enough to know it to.”
“We’ll be in deep ourselves, sir,” Bhudraja said quietly.
“Yes I know,” Crowe sighed, “but for once I don’t think we’ve been hit with the shittiest available end of the stick.” Crowe pulled himself out of his chair. “I need to make a ship wide announcement – let the crew know that we’re ten hours from show time.”
___________________________
19th February 2068
There was no point bringing empty ships, not this time. The ammunition ship and the surviving transports would remain. With their fuel tanks almost full, they would have the range to reach Dryad if Earth fell. Whether that was worth anything was a matter of opinion. The four surviving tankers were formed into a box formation, with the cruisers clustered around them, the destroyers in the vanguard and Fortitude bringing up the rear.
On the display Willis could see three Nameless scouts holding position a light hour away, just outside Pluto’s orbit. Visible beyond them and unquestionably now somewhere else in the system, was the rest of the enemy fleet. Finally, in orbit around Earth, were the ships of the Home Fleet. With the secret of their torpedoes now revealed, dozens had been deployed at the edge of Earth’s Red Line. Finally, out of sight on Phobos, the Fast Division lay in wait.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 16
