Alice supervised her team as they deployed the mortar on the very spot Byatt had selected. They were all young burly lads, selected for strong backs able to lug the mortar and its ammunition. They might have been eager but as raw recruits, her role was, as much as anything, to act as a steadying influence and to make sure they ran when they needed to.
“All set?” she asked.
“Ready to rock and roll,” one of them answered brashly.
She did a visual double check and plugged in the pad. As it ran its own diagnostics, she checked the fuses on the four bombs laid out in readiness to fire. Without the luxury of spare ammunition for live fire practice, they’d had to rely on computer simulations. But no one ever claimed sims were enough.
“Alright,” she muttered to herself before glancing up at the rest of them. “Sit down, we have a few minutes.”
The wait was torturous. It might have been easier if they could have seen or heard something – anything, but they were a good kilometre and a half back from the roadway.
“Shit! Something’s got to have happened,” muttered a member of the detachment.
“No, it hasn’t,” Alice replied as she intently studied her pad.
Another five minutes crept past and they all fidgeted uncomfortably. Although she said nothing, Alice was starting to wonder at what point it would become prudent to retreat. For all they knew, the marines might have been blocked, intercepted or the target might have stopped. Then the pad beeped.
“First round into position,” she snapped, as the loader leapt forward.
As he raised the bomb over the muzzle he nearly lost his grip and let it slip. Alice intervened just in time to arrest its fall and glared at him. On the pad, a countdown started from five.
“Go!” she said as the count reached zero.
The concussion of the bomb launch propellant took them all by surprise. That hadn’t been in the simulation! But the mortar was already adjusting its aim and the pad beeped again.
“Number two! Number two!” Alice barked.
As the second projectile went skyward the crew was already lifting the third into position. As the fourth bomb coughed forth, in the distance there could hear a series of booms at they landed.
“Should we wait to see if…” one man began to say.
“Pack it up and move!” Alice cut him off as she yanked the pad out of its housing and stuffed it into her pack.
The ammunition bearers were already off and running while two other members of the team wrestled out the tube. The last three tried to remove the base plate, but due to concussion it had been forced into the ground and they couldn’t get purchase. Swearing savagely, Alice snatched the crowbar they’d brought for that very purpose. Ramming it under the lip of the plate, she levered it up.
“Go! Go! Go!” she shouted as they got it out and the four of them set off after the others.
In the distance she could hear the report of small arms fire interspersed by the heavier rattle of the machinegun. By the time they reached the number two point, over a kilometre distant from the first, there was a stitch in her side and Alice was wheezing like a broken bellows. But they got the mortar set up and gathered their breath as they waited.
In the distance, the shooting petered out and Alice glanced at her watch. If the ambush had gone to plan the marines would be starting to fall back by now. Then Alice caught the sound of something she had not heard since Douglas Base and had hoped never to hear again – incoming missiles.
“Get down!” she roared as she dived for the ground.
Explosions ripped through the forest in and around their former position. The next salvo to land was further away. As she hugged the earth, the radio briefly crackled to life in her ear.
“All units fall back to the rally point.”
Incoming missiles were still tearing up the forest. Given time, the whole area was likely to be blanketed in explosives. But for the moment they were clear.
“Everyone up!” Alice called out as she scrambled to her feet. “We’re bugging out!”
___________________________
A series of images clicked up on the screen. In the first, a convoy of bulk cargo movers burned. The cab area of each machine was riddled with bullet holes. In the next image, fires burned across acres of what had been ripening crops, while the foreground harvester exploded. As the last of the images disappeared, Colonel Dautsch rose from his seat.
“A complete success,” he said as he slapped the table enthusiastically. “Everyone did very well. Four bulk movers destroyed and several harvester and irrigation machines knocked out. There’s no doubt that we’ve completely neutralised food production efforts in this region. This was our first big operation and it has been a success. Well done to you all.”
Alice slipped out of the command tent a short while later and into the night. Unlike most of those who had taken part in the attack, she didn’t much feel like celebrating.
The marine camp was at the north edge of a roughly fifty kilometre wide circle that they semi-jokingly referred to as Camp Dautsch.
“You look perturbed,” the man himself observed as he approached Alice.
She was lying on the ground, staring up through the branches of the forest canopy at the stars. Behind them she could hear the celebration still going on. It had taken a week to make it back to base after the raid, but sore feet weren’t the only reason she didn’t feel much like partying.
“Anyone else would just say worried,” she replied without looking round.
“So you are worried?”
“For about two years and counting,” she said. “I wonder whether we’ve woken the sleeping giant.”
Dautsch settled himself beside her.
“They were never really sleeping,” he replied. “But yes, we have definitely made them aware that we are out here. An unavoidable side effect I’m afraid.”
“Is it really worth it, Colonel? I mean, how will the loss of a few trucks affect a war?”
“On its own, it’s not. Then again, there is pretty much nothing that does,” he replied calmly. “But we are forcing them to consume resources protecting both their farm lands and supply lines. That’s often how war is waged as a resources game where it’s about how much you have and how efficiently you use it. We don’t know why they were growing those crops. They could be to support settlers they intend to bring in or it could be to feed their military. Either way, at least we put a small spanner in their works.”
___________________________
The next few months passed mostly quietly with periodic spasms of activity. There were several more attacks. Dautsch was careful to ensure that their operations did not centre on the region of the farms and camps. Instead, he chose a blank spot on the map and made sure any activities, which the Nameless were likely to be aware of, circled this point.
A couple of months after the first attack, the Nameless finally put two and two together. They carpet bombed the area and then repeatedly hit it from orbit. By that time however, the marines had expended most of their ammunition and Dautsch was content to allow the Nameless to think that their problem had been solved. So that, Alice assumed, was that.
“We need to make contact,” Dautsch opened the weekly meeting.
Most of the group had dispersed across the whole region in preparation for the harvest season, when every strong back would be needed to get the crops in.
“With who?” asked William.
Dautsch pointed directly upwards.
“Those scout ships are coming through weekly now,” he said. “I know that we’ve all found it a comfort to hear those transmissions, but we need something more substantial than comfort.”
“A supply drop, sir? Into enemy held territory?” Martoma asked.
“Well, those who don’t ask, don’t get,” Dautsch replied glibly, before assuming a more serious expression. “There are a number of good reasons to contact the fleet. Firstly and if possible, a supply drop would improve our position. Se
condly, at the moment we know that they’re there, but they don’t know we’re here. If they know for certain that people still remain, then that might encourage them to get a move on and liberate the planet. However, the challenge isn’t to find a reason to communicate with the scouts – it’s to find a means that doesn’t immediately invite an orbital strike on our position.”
“Well, broadly you have two options,” said Stephan Host, a pre-war communications technician, “radio or laser. Laser requires a tracking system to aim it…”
“Which we don’t have anymore,” Alice interrupted.
“Correct,” Host agreed. “That leaves us with option number two – a radio transmission.”
“Which the Nameless will hear and respond to,” Martoma said.
“Yup,” Host nodded.
“Is a big transmitter needed?” Alice asked.
“No.” This time Dautsch was the one to reply. “Those scouts have very sensitive communications packages and they are coming pretty close to Landfall.”
“Well, there are still a lot of radio transmitters around. Every human settlements should have one,” Martoma said.
“Yeah,” Host added enthusiastically. “In fact, we can use a lot of old hardware. There are hard lines connecting various settlements. It wouldn’t be hard to rig a set-up that will allow us to send a transmission while staying a nice comfortable distance from the transmitter.”
“Pity we’ll get some settlement blown off the map for the sake of one message,” Alice remarked.
“Hopefully they’ll do that,” Dautsch said.
When they looked at him he added: “I’m perfectly happy for them to keep thinking they can solve problems by bombing them instead of putting boots on the ground.”
Three weeks later Alice waited patiently as Host fussed with the connection where they’d spliced into the fibre optic cable. With the harvest of the banana patata crops under way, only a small detachment with a couple of marines for protection could be spared. It had been a nerve-wracking week, creeping into the small town that had once been a part of the Italian colony on Landfall. Aside from a number of wind turbines spinning on one of the hills that surrounded the settlement, nothing had been moving. There were signs of a hurried evacuation and the flora of Landfall was already beginning to reclaim this small abandoned outpost of humankind. There had been no way to know whether the Nameless were watching. To Alice, it would have made a lot of sense for them to do so. There were substantial amounts of useful supplies lying around – in many respects the town could easily have been a tethered goat. But the Nameless failed to put in an appearance before they reactivated the small radio transmitter they’d found in the town hall.
“Okaaayyy...” Host muttered to himself.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
“We are indeed.”
Alice looked upwards.
“Now we just need them to turn up.”
They were waiting for over a day, with each ten-man detachment taking its turn listening to the radio. During her time off, Alice attempted to teach herself Italian using one of the old paper books she’d picked up in the settlement. Finally the radio chirped into life.
“Landfall, this is Battle Fleet scout ship K7, signalling in the blind.”
Alice closed her eyes. She hadn’t listened, hadn’t wanted to listen, to any of the previous transmissions. It had just been too painful.
“Landfall, this is Battle Fleet scout ship K7, signalling in the blind,” the radio repeated.
“All right, Host,” she said, her throat unaccountably dry.
“We are live and on air,” he said as he activated their pre-recorded signal.
“Landfall, this is Battle Fleet scout ship K7…”
Then they cut in with their message, which had been recorded by the Colonel. There was no way to know how much of human communication the Nameless understood, so it was baldly factual but with the fewest details he had judged necessary. Alice looked to the north and the distant hills between them and the settlement, expecting at any moment to see a kinetic strike projectile spear down from the clouds.
The radio went silent as Dautsch’s message finished.
“Come on, come on,” Host whispered.
“Landfall, this is Battle Fleet scout ship K7 to Colonel Dautsch. Message received.”
There was a pause – long enough for Alice to conclude that was all they were getting. Then it crackled into life again.
“Hang on in there, Landfall. We’re coming.”
“Alright,” Alice said in a choked voice, “let’s get packed up. I want to be ten kilometres away from here by nightfall.”
An hour later they were making good time directly away from the settlement when the marine out front shouted out.
“Aircraft! Cover!”
Everyone went to ground.
From the ditch into which she rolled, Alice waited and listened. Something thundered directly over them and she braced for the shock of bombs, but nothing came. Sitting up she caught sight of one of the Nameless’s big airship-like gunboats moving away, on course for the Italian settlement.
Now they know we’re still here, she thought.
Chapter Fifteen
Drumbeat
31st August 2068
The small conference room darkened as the projector came on.
“Four point seven light years is the largest gap between solar systems that we have ever observed the Nameless traverse. If a jump from one system to another involves a greater distance than that, then the Nameless find a route that involves smaller steps, even if that entails a substantial detour. Certain very isolated solar systems appear to be beyond their reach, something we have used in the past and continue to use to establish secure bases.”
“Yes, this is all very established but what is it that the intelligence section thinks gives us a strategic opportunity?” Wingate asked.
“This, sir,” Tsukioka replied. “This map is derived from one seized by the De Gaulle task force. Of course, much of the military information on it will most likely be out of date as the Nameless shift supply dumps and gates to prevent us targeting them. But there are things they cannot change.”
“Yes, their home worlds,” Admiral Fengzi interrupted, “but we cannot project a fleet that far for long enough to win a campaign. The logistics are simply beyond us.”
“I wasn’t referring to the home worlds, sir,” Tsukioka said. “I’m talking about this system here – one we which in Intelligence refer to as The Spur. It is in effect the first stepping stone from their arm of the galaxy to ours.”
“What distance is it from the first system in the Nameless arm?” Lewis asked as he studied the map.
“Four point nine three light years.”
“That’s…”
“Yes sir, further than any other jump we have seen.”
“So it disproves the four point seven limit theory?” Fengzi asked.
“Perhaps not sir. It is the only gate installation that we have ever seen transmit a beacon. We in intelligence believe those two points to be related. We think that this distance of four point nine three is... the ragged edge of their jump capability. Even with a gate station, they can only make the jump with a beacon to home in on. Without that beacon, the jump becomes impossible. So if this system is taken from them, then the Nameless cannot reach us.”
“And simply going towards the galactic core, where the arms converge – why isn’t that an option?” Wingate asked.
Tsukioka flicked a control and the computer ran through multiple navigation permutations until it settled on one.
“According to our star charts and distant observations, without the Spur and making no individual jumps further than four point nine three light years, this is the next shortest route from the Nameless worlds to Earth. As you say, they would have to travel inwards towards the galactic core, where the arms converge and star density is higher, then cross through the Aèllr Confederacy or dogleg round it. The distance betwe
en them and us would at least triple. We believe the distance they are already fighting across is near the limit of their capabilities. Even if they could manage it, the fleet they already have in our arm will have starved before they can re-establish a supply channel. Without the Spur, the war is over.”
Lights came back on, but the room remained silent.
“Paul, what do you think?” Wingate asked.
“Interesting,” Lewis said thoughtfully. “It is a possible target but we need to know more. A few optical images aren’t enough to base an attack on. How long to get ships out there again and make repeated reconnaissance passes?”
“It’s a long way. The turn around time for even our fastest couriers would be six weeks,” Tsukioka replied. “That’s once we get a relay of supply ships into position.”
“Which is a hell of a long way,” Wingate commented.
“The solution to our problems would hardly be next door,” Fengzi said.
“Sadly not, but it means we will have to commit to an attack based on information that will be months out of date by the time any combat units can arrive in the area,” Lewis replied.
“Follow up missions are a given,” Wingate said. “We need to work out where to place and route vessels to allow a continuous loop of reconnaissance ships.
“Some of these more isolated systems, which the Nameless can’t reach, offer us secure locations,” Lewis said, pointing to a number of possibilities. “In fact, we must start putting together some kind of logistical chain now. Otherwise it will be impossible keep a fleet in the field at such distance if we have to heave everything from Earth.”
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 28
