“It is harsh because too many people are talking this up as more than it really is. I have read the media reports and ‘expert analysis.’ Too many people are choosing to live in a fantasy world where we’ve just won the war,” Lewis said shaking his head. “In the real world we’ve only avoided losing it.”
“Most people Admiral, would at least enjoy the moment.” Clifton observed.
“And were this war over, you can be sure I would be running around whooping with the best of them. But we are not there.”
“Alright Admiral, say what you have come here to say.”
“We wish to talk about the future and what our next step should be,” Lewis replied. “What our efforts have bought us, is a momentary advantage. The Nameless fleet has been severely weakened relative to our own…”
“By the count of my own analysts, so far Battle Fleet has destroyed the equivalent of its own tonnage and that of its own manpower. How the hell can any intelligent race sustain such loss?”
“Economic strength. Immense economic strength,” Lewis said. “In many respects the Nameless are in a similar position to this country more than a century ago, during the wars of the early twentieth century. It had an economy both immensely powerful and safely out of harm’s way. Opponents could not directly threaten the United States homeland and instead had to hope to break the will of the American people by defeating their armies in the field. This is where the Nameless diverge from you. Before it was overrun, the reports we got from Douglas base on Landfall, indicated they used biological constructs as infantry. I suspect the crews of those ships are something similar, which is why they take such a casual attitude to losses.”
“I expected you to tell me that I shouldn’t expect an understandable rationale from an alien race.”
“No matter what way they perceive the universe, they are subject to practical realities. They can fight a war only with the resources available to them. This is where our problem lies. Given time, the Nameless will make good their losses and they will do it quicker than we can ours. Unless we can end this war within the next twelve to eighteen months, then two to five years from now, they will be back and they won’t make the same mistake twice.”
Clifton’s expression became graver.
“Then you don’t believe Admiral, that their resolve will crumble, after losing so much?” she asked.
“No, I do not. To a certain extent, warships are built to be placed in danger and even lost if required. We have destroyed nothing they cannot replace.”
“So what does the fleet propose?”
“Our problem has always been that while we’ve been able to fight their fleets in the field, we have not been in a position to strike at their home worlds or core worlds. In contrast as we have experienced, they have been able to attack Earth. We have been vulnerable to a knockout blow but not in a position to land one in return. We need to identify and destroy targets that will once and for all remove their ability to wage war against us. This is the first time since the attack on Baden and the Third Fleet that we haven’t been under pressure. This is the first chance we’ve had had to seriously search for those targets.”
“I know fuel supplies from Saturn have started coming in again, but with everything shut down, it will be at least six months before Earth’s economic output can reach pre-siege levels,” Clifton said.
“Yes, and even though damage to our forces was relatively light, ammunition expenditure was heavy. It will be months before we are ready to fight another fleet scale engagement,” Lewis replied. “But we aren’t looking for such a fight. Not yet. What we need to do now is to send several small squadrons out past the Junction Line, Landfall and even past the Centaur planet.”
“To find the Nameless.”
It wasn’t a question.
“To find where we can hurt them, Madam President.”
Clifton stood and returned to the window. She looked up at the night sky and pointed.
“There they are – the transports we sent to the Aèllr. We handed those people to a race we fought thirty years ago and here they are, returned to us safely.”
“The Nameless are not the Aèllr; I say that as someone who has fought both of them,” Lewis replied coldly. “The Aèllr sought to contain us. The Nameless will eradicate us if they can.”
“You say that Admiral, but the reality is we know almost nothing about what they really are.” Clifton turned sharply. “For Christ’s sake, we still don’t even know what they look like! What if there was a way to end this war without further bloodshed? What if we end up locked in a cycle of conflict because no one has the courage to reach out?”
Lewis made no immediate reply. Finally, he sighed.
“And what would we do if offered a ceasefire?” he asked, “Take it? Knowing that while negotiations were ongoing, the Nameless would be rebuilding their strength. That if or when those negotiations failed, the war would resume, with us in a weaker position than we had been. This is the second war I have fought in, Madam President. In the last war I survived virtual suicide missions. In this one, it has been my role to send others to their deaths. I don’t advocate military solutions because I believe them to be the easy route – I’ve been shot at too many times for that. The Nameless have given no indication that they have any desire for peace. Perhaps this defeat will have changed that – personally I doubt it – but right now I don’t believe we should even dare to pursue a diplomatic settlement, not when negotiating from a position of diminishing strength.”
Clifton didn’t answer and Lewis waited patiently.
“Tell me Admiral, if your fleet orbited the Nameless home world, what would you do?”
“Whatever I judged necessary to preserve the human race, which if I was granted the authority by my civilian commanders, would include bombarding that world until the rubble bounced, or holding out the olive branch of peace.” Lewis said flatly. “But in my opinion, mercy is best offered from a position where it can not be mistaken for weakness.”
“I do wonder Admiral, what history will say of us.”
“History, Madam President, can judge me whatever way it likes, just as long as that history is written by a human.”
Clifton smiled faintly.
“Admiral, this is the question that we keep coming back to. Can the fleet even achieve an outright victory? Can you win the war?”
“Do you gamble Madam President?”
Clifton frowned at the question.
“No.”
“Believe me, Madam President. You and the rest of the human race are gamblers. We’ve had to go all-in twice just to stay in the war. If we are to win, then I can be certain of one thing. We will have to go all-in at least one more time.”
Chapter Ten
Figures in the Landscape
1st April 2068
The object was six metres long by seven and a half wide. Its speed and apparent density would put it outside the usual parameters of a natural formation, while its current course placed it on track to intersect the planet’s orbit within a fortnight. Two years previously, that last point alone would have been enough to warrant investigation. If the military established no threat was present, the orbital mining industry might have investigated to see if it might have any economic value. If they passed it over, the planetary defence grid would either have pushed the object onto a different course or used it for target practice.
That was then. There were no miners now and the defence grid was nothing more than a few orbiting fragments. Given time, the planet’s new owners would likely put their own systems in place, but for the moment no one was scanning the skies closely enough to spot such a small and apparently harmless object.
So no one got close enough to make out the cylinder form, the burnt out remains of the primary thruster assembly or the stencilled lettering along the sides that read: ESCAPE POD 037 – BADEN BASE. Ahead was the planet Landfall, once humanity’s, now lost.
___________________________
Alic
e whistled tunelessly as she laced fresh branches up through the netting that stretched from one side of the clearing to the other. Working with her arms over her head was tiring but it needed to be done.
“You know, boss,” Badie said as they finished up, “we could really do with finding a better solution than this. We use up far too much time and effort on it.”
“I know,” Alice replied. “An actual camouflage netting would be my favourite. This lash-up really blocks out too much light. Still, just as well Darren came up with it.”
“Yes,” Badie said forbiddingly. “Well, he would know about concealing fields from aerial reconnaissance. I doubt it was banana patata he was growing though.”
Alice smiled but said nothing as she helped Badie put on his backpack then filled it up with the tools they’d brought with them. Despite the loss of an arm in the trenches of Douglas Base, Badie was still as strong as an ox and it definitely grated on the former policeman’s nerves to use something that had been suggested by Darren their – allegedly – ex-cannabis grower. Still, that might be what would get them through the next winter, assuming a lot of other things went their way.
It was a solid hour and a half hike back to the central camp. At one time that would have been enough to leave Alice worn out. Like the netting, the long walk was another thing that burned a lot of time but again like the netting, was a necessary evil. As the two of them followed a game trail, Alice heard something, something out of place, and stopped dead in her tracks. Badie froze and then dropped into a crouch.
What is it? His raised eyebrow asked.
She heard it again, something moving down the trail towards them, something that wasn’t too concerned about making noise. There was a faint pop as Alice released the catch on the holster at her hip. In what was now a practiced motion, she checked the magazine. Eleven nine-millimetre rounds remained. She chambered one of the irreplaceable bullets and motioned Badie to retreat back into the undergrowth. He nodded and slipped back, a small axe gripped in his remaining hand, while she took a firing stance behind a tree. She’d only fired the pistol a handful of times and most of those had been warning shots against animals. The weapon might be more a symbol of authority than anything else, but its weight had often been a comfort.
She could make out individual footfalls now, heavy and flat-footed – someone running hard, but only with the two feet of a human, rather than the four of a Nameless soldier drone. She half lowered the weapon just as the runner came into view. It was one of the girls from the camp, her feet thumping the ground as she puffed like an old steam train. Alice stepped out of her concealment. The runner let out a cry of surprise, jumped sideways and crashed into a shrub.
“Juliet, what are you doing here?” Alice demanded as she cleared the pistol’s chamber and re-holstered it.
Juliet was still getting her breath when Badie reappeared, axe still in hand.
“William says for you to come, Boss!” Juliet said between gasps.
“What is it?”
“Something came down from the sky, Boss.”
“Nameless?”
No. In that event William wouldn’t be sending messages. He would know to pack up and run.
“No, Boss,” Juliet confirmed. “Something big came down on parachutes. We all saw it come down. It landed over the hills to the north.”
Alice glanced in the direction of the camp then down at Juliet. The girl was still sucking in air.
“Now what?” she muttered as she shrugged off her pack. “Badie.”
“Yeah?”
“You and Juliet take my pack. Make your way back to camp as fast as you can manage.”
“Go, we’ll catch up.”
When Alice reached the camp twenty minutes later, she could immediately feel an atmosphere. The sentries had been reprimanded often enough in the past about slacking. This time though, Alice heard the alert and the all clear being sounded before she even reached the perimeter. There was a smell of damp, smouldering wood from the fires at the very edge of the camp. Normally, these were placed there to distract any heat-seekers that might home in on them, but now they had been doused. Her second-in-command stood in the middle of the camp, pack on, arms crossed. Around him some people were milling about. Most were seated, but very obviously ready to go.
“William,” she called out as she jogged towards him.
“Boss,” he said in a serious tone. “We may have us a problem.”
“Tell me.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and walked her over to the ravine that flanked the camp.
“About an hour ago,” he said pointing, “we sighted something coming down. Well, I say we, but it was actually Juliet who spotted it. That girl’s got eyes like a hawk. Anyway, it was coming down on a parachute and we got binoculars onto it.”
“A parachute? Not rotors?”
“Yeah. A lot like the old pre-contact space capsules.”
“So not a Nameless drop pod?”
“Human, boss, definitely human. It was a lander of some kind, a pretty big one by the look of it.”
“How far away?”
“I think it was drifting away from us when it dropped behind those hills – so twenty to thirty kilometres maybe?”
Alice chewed her lip as she thought. When they first escaped from Douglas Base, her plan had been to keep moving and never again become sitting ducks for the Nameless. That simple plan had been enough for the first few months. They’d been able to hunt and gather as they went along. Occasionally they risked entering abandoned human settlements. A lot had already been cleaned out by other groups of escapees from Douglas, but even a single packet of dried peas could make such an expedition worthwhile. The winter had been a wake-up call though. They’d gone to ground in a cluster of caves and damn near starved. After that, the plan had changed.
“If this area was inside the range of any radar system then it can’t have missed the pod coming down,” William said. “The sensible thing would be to start moving now, get out of the region as fast as we can.”
“And probably starve within the next six months,” Alice replied, glancing up at him. “We can’t bring the fields or the crops with us. If the Nameless come to investigate, they’ll come by air, in which case we couldn’t get far enough away to matter. And if we’re on the move, we’re more likely to be spotted.”
“Alright, Boss. What’s the plan?”
“No point sending messengers to get the people working the fields – most of them will already be on their way back. We’ll go quiet for the next few days. No fires, no movement, wait to see if anything happens.” She paused and shook her head. “An entire sodding planet and it has to land next to us.”
“And if nothing does happen?” he asked.
“I need to think about that.”
As the sun dropped below the horizon, Alice sat with her back to a tree watching the northern skies. One part joke to two parts reality, her nickname ‘Boss’ was a far cry from the Alice who had originally arrived on Landfall. She’d been a civilian language expert then, working for the fleet but really only passing through. Then the war started and five minutes in, her ride was blown away. She’d fetched up at the Fleet Ground Base at Douglas, got drafted and assigned as a stretcher-bearer. By virtue of survival, she was judged to be command material and promoted to section leader.
When Douglas’s defences began to buckle, she was assigned to lead two hundred and fifty refugees out into the wilderness to try to keep them safe. That had been more than six months ago. Since then they’d lost nearly fifty people. Most, small family clusters, simply slipped away, choosing to go it alone. A handful, weakened by the months in the underground shelters of Douglas, sickened and died. One man, a troublemaker, thief and, she suspected, a sexual criminal, she had personally driven off at gunpoint. However, survivors who joined them from other groups had replaced nearly all their losses. Going by their tales, many of those groups had been badly led. Some had been hunted down by the Nameless and des
troyed, while others had turned on each other in the worst ways possible. In all that time, Alice’s authority had never been seriously questioned, not because of her gun, but mostly because of the threadbare corporal’s stripes still sewn to her jacket. Alice wasn’t trained, but she had survived the trenches of Douglas. In the wilderness of Landfall, that made her the equivalent of the kingly one-eyed man in the land of the blind.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought and this is a potential opportunity,” Alice told the small gathering of her most trusted lieutenants. “So we will go and look for that pod,”
For three days they’d watched the skies intently – three bright sunny days without a cloud in the sky. Obviously that didn’t rule out satellite surveillance, but at what point did caution give way to paranoia?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” cautioned Alan Berkly. “If the Nameless come while we’re there – well God help us!”
“That is a fair point, Alan, but if they haven’t come looking after three days, then odds are they won’t look at all,” Alice replied. “As it is, we’re short of a lot of things, things that might be on that pod, and unlike the settlements we’ve checked in the past, it won’t have been picked over by someone else first. Hell, one first aid kit would be worth it. Obviously we’ll take precautions, just in case. William, I’ll lead this myself. You’re in charge while I’m away. Minimum movement and keep the fields well hidden.”
“Okay, Boss.”
“The most likely result,” Alice added as she stood, “is that we won’t even find the damn thing. That’s thick woodland and God only knows how many square kilometres it could have come down in. I’ll be looking for volunteers because if we are spotted then we aren’t coming back here – we’ll lead them as far away as we can.”
For all Alice’s grim words, there was no shortage of volunteers, allowing her to select six dependable individuals, several of whom had been witnesses to the original descent. Leaving at first light, it took them a full day to reach and crest the hills the pod had disappeared behind. Examining the trees below, Alice identified several likely points where something large might have crashed through the forest canopy. After taking a bearing, they started down.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 19
