Also, thinking about the future meant thinking about the past. There would be only one letter. Aside from her parents, there wasn’t really anyone else to write to. On her desk was a picture, something that should already have been sent over to the transport but she couldn’t bring herself to part with it. The photograph was of her and Vincent Espey on their graduation day. If he were still alive to read it, he would have got a letter.
She’d always put career ahead of people and now, looking back, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret. Hey! I’ve done stuff, she mentally reprimanded herself. I’m good at what I do and what I do is important. Maybe there aren’t many people who’ll miss me but right now, it’s hard to see that being a bad thing. If I do make it, then I’ve got time to change that. The internal demons didn’t have an answer for that. Willis nodded to herself and picked up the pen again.
Dear Mum and Dad,
If you are reading this, then the worst has happened. Given the nature of these things, odds are it was quick for me. I know you never really wanted me to join the forces and this is probably the day you’ve feared, but you always supported me and I thank you for that. I suppose, if I do die, the only really irritating thing will be that I won’t know how it all turned out…
As Spectre lurched back into real space the collision detection siren screamed. Across the command channel, Willis heard the helmsman swear as he flipped to manual and went all-astern on the engines. The cruiser shuddered and jolted violently and Willis felt the harness straps bite into her shoulders.
“Navigation!” she demanded.
“We’re off target! We’ve come out… inside the comet’s tail!”
On the visual display she could see the reconnaissance ship being thrown about by the comet’s boiling gasses. Bigger and heavier, the Sherlock was weathering the unexpected conditions better than her smaller comrades.
“Got positional lock! We came out a hundred K closer to the comet than we should. Jesus Christ! I think we only just missed its mass shadow!”
Willis could see the navigator’s face had gone pale.
No time to think about that, at the rear of their formation, Sherlock had gone all back on her engines and was now slip-sliding out of the comet’s tail.
“Helm, eighty percent back on Engines Two and Four, starboard side thrusters to full!” she snapped as Spectre continued to pitch.
“Got it,” the helmsman shouted back as he worked the controls.
As they slid clear the pitching faded away.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” the navigator started to say, “I must have…”
“No time for that now,” she cut him off before flicking her intercom to the main command channel. “This is Bridge to all department heads. Commander Yaya, I need a full damage control check of the forward compartments. Engineering, Coms, Sensors and Fire Control, I want full systems checks. Report in ten minutes!”
Her orders prompted a collection of affirmatives across the channel. That done, Willis turned to the navigation display. The difference between where they had intended to come out and where they’d actually emerged was tiny, barely a few hundred kilometres. Compared to the multiple astronomical units they’d jumped, the difference was merely fractions of one percent. Yet it had nearly killed them and might do so yet.
The emergence point was outside the blind spot they’d been aiming for. Could the Nameless have spotted them through the comet’s plume material? If they had, this offensive could be about to end very badly. Minutes crawled past as around her the crew worked. Willis paid particular attention the coms section. If the Nameless had seen something, then communications chatter would be the likely giveaway. But the solar system remained peaceful. On the bridge though, reports started to filter through from both inside and outside the ship.
“Bridge, Sensors. We’ve gone blind on the forward ventral passive array.”
“Bridge, Coms. Laser signal from reconnaissance ship. They report they’ve sustained micro-asteroid strikes. They’ve taken casualties and their towed array has been ripped away. Report from Sherlock, they’ve taken several small hull breaches and scoring to the forward abrasion plates but report as fully functional.”
Willis listened impassively as her subordinates reported in.
“Any chance of a work around?” she asked as Yaya finished.
“We’ll try but I’m not optimistic, ma’am,” the Commander reported. “The passive array took a direct hit. About a third of it just isn’t there anymore and the Lazarus systems can’t seem to find a working power connection.”
“Keep hands working on it for the moment,” Willis instructed, “we’ll just have to manage.”
To have sustained damage to her ship at this early stage wasn’t good, but the damage to the recon ship was a more immediate problem. The whole point of the small ship was to spool out its towed array to allow them to see past the comet without revealing anything that might be spotted in return. It was gone but they still had to be able to see the Nameless planet to judge when to move.
“Helm, shut down the dorsal wing’s manoeuvring engine and programme thrusters to move us just far enough to show the dorsal tower. We’ll move up in an hour, when the engine has cooled down.”
She glanced up at the bridge clock. Phantom and the strike boats would still be getting into position. It was now seventy minutes to kick off.
Willis found herself holding her breath as Spectre slid slowly upwards. How closely were the Worms observing the space surrounding the planet? Was there a screen on the planet or on one of the orbiting starforts, registering that the comet’s profile had just changed? As the cruiser’s dorsal tower crested the top of the comet, a quick burst from the thrusters arrested their drift. As they did, the surviving passive arrays started to get their first reading and Willis felt herself calm a little.
For the past hour she’d been forcing herself not to fidget as they waited. But in that time, not much seemed to have changed compared to the previous reading received from the reconnaissance ship before they jumped in. There was traffic near the space gate and several of the Nameless warships were visible in orbit. But there was no sign of any alarm. The engines of the warships were still cold, while transports continued to go about their business.
“Bridge, Sensors. Captain, one of the enemy ships moving towards the gate is not a transport. Engine profile is consistent with a cruiser, moving at low acceleration.”
“Damn,” Willis said quietly.
The strike boats would probably run into more opposition than they expected. There was nothing she could do about it and in any case, what they were seeing was already four minutes out of date.
“Captain, it is now zero hour,” the Navigator said quietly.
Willis nodded without replying. Out past the heliopause, seven strike boats and two gunboats would be spinning up their jump drives. Between spin up, time in transit and distance induced lag, Spectre wouldn’t see them for another ten long minutes.
Although she’d been expecting it Willis jumped when the sensor operator eventually announced it.
“Bridge, Sensors. Nine new contacts, confirmed as friendlies!”
On the holo, nine blips appeared next to the Red Line and immediately vectored towards the orbiting gate. Around them appeared a circle to indicate the effective range of their missiles. Even on full burn they were a good twenty minutes from achieving firing range on the gate. The transports moving to and from the gate scattered like startled pigeons, each trying to put distance between themselves and the strike boats’ obvious target.
“Coms?” Willis said quietly.
“Confirmed, Captain, the enemy has commenced FTL transmissions,” the communications officer replied.
“Enemy starships are powering up engines.”
Willis gritted her teeth as the holo showed the first missiles beginning to fly from the starforts on either side of the gate. Further back, the alien cruiser was also firing but the strike boats continued to push in. One
of the blips winked out and another started flashing damage codes. The circle for their missile range still wasn’t overlapping the gate and their formation was getting ragged as each boat desperately tried to find a way through the defensive fire. Another blip disappeared from the scope, while a second started to fall behind.
With painful slowness the strike boats crossed into firing range but still closed.
“Oh come on!” Willis said to herself. “Fire and get out of there!”
The distance was too great for Spectre’s passives to make out individual missiles but a haze of small signals appeared as the strike boats all sharply turned and made for the Red Line. The straggler didn’t make it but the space gate and one of the starforts also disappeared from the plot, to be replaced by the indistinct signals of wreckage.
“Captain, enemy mobile units are on the move.”
“All of them?”
“Negative. We can see one escort still in orbit and the visible ship count is missing a second escort and a cruiser. Estimate they are currently located behind the planet.”
And if we’re really lucky, Willis thought to herself as she followed the blips gathering speed away from the planet, they’re all down for maintenance. But for now all she could do was continue to wait.
The blip for the surviving strike boats crossed the Red Line and disappeared as they jumped away. Now might be the moment it all unravelled. If the alien ships returned to the planet, then Spectre would be faced with too strong a defence. They would have to fall back and head deeper into Nameless space, losing time along with the element of surprise. Worse, the Worms wouldn’t be trying to absorb a strategic hammer blow just as the Home Fleet went in.
But then there came a second flurry of FTL transmissions, this time from the gas giant. The readings from the passives were minutes out of date but Spectre could hear the FTL transmissions in real time. Willis shifted in her seat as she waited to see what decision the Nameless command would make. Had they successfully made them an offer they couldn’t refuse?
On the holo, the blips continued towards the Blue Line. As they crossed, the passives could see them braking hard to jump. Then as they came to a near halt they disappeared from the plot. Willis exhaled a long shuddering breath and switched the intercom to ship wide.
“All hands, stand ready, we are about to jump.”
Now all Willis had to do was judge the precise moment the Nameless ships would be deep into the gas giant’s mass shadow, but before they could hunt down and destroy Phantom.
She decided on twenty minutes. That would be long enough.
As the minutes passed, they listened to the Nameless FTL transmissions, going back and forth from between the two planets. If they’d stopped that might have been an indication Phantom had been destroyed. Spectre’s sensors could see the gas giant but it was over twenty light minutes away. There was just no way to know. But Willis couldn’t worry because their turn was about to come. As the countdown approached zero, she put her intercom to ship wide.
Willis had never been one for last minute pep talks. People knew what they were there for and that should be enough. But it wasn’t always and it wasn’t fair to expect it to be. Most of the crew were in sealed compartments – each in a small metal box with no way of knowing what was going on beyond its walls. But all of them would know they were about to make a frontal assault in a ship ill equipped for such a task. The right words could make that load a little easier to bear.
“All hands, this is your captain. In a few minutes our wait will be over. Phantom has succeeded in diverting most of the enemy’s mobile units to give us a clear run at our objective. There’s no doubt this will still be a rough ride for us all but this is also where we start to fight back. This is when the Nameless will learn the real meaning of the phrase ‘reap the whirlwind’. Remember our comrades at the Spur and the entire human race are counting on us. Let’s not disappoint them. Good luck everyone and let’s get this done!”
Flicking off ship wide and returning to the command channel, Willis spoke again.
“Tactical, let’s make sure everyone is awake. Sound Red Alert!” she said, stretching as much as her harness would allow.
As the alarm sounded across all channels, Willis surveyed her bridge.
“Bridge, Coms. The reconnaissance ship is requesting instructions.”
They were to have waited and observed the results of the attack but with badly damaged sensor systems there was no point now.
“Order them to jump to the gas giant and, if they can, inform Phantom that we’ve started our run,” she instructed. “Then tell them to get the hell back to their carrier!”
A tactical upload from the Sherlock showed she was fully operational. All that remained was for Spectre’s jump drive to spin up. A moment later, even that was done.
“Helm, take us in.”
Spectre emerged from jump space less than a hundred kilometres from the Red Line. Astern, Sherlock followed them back into real space. The bridge holo blanked out then started to fill in as the first returns came in. One of the Nameless ships was just orbiting into view. None of the starforts were on their side of the planet and the only other visible asset was the space elevator and the space docks.
“Sherlock’s going full burn, Captain.”
“Helm,” she ordered, “match her acceleration.”
“Understood, engines going to sixty percent.”
On her visual display, Willis could see the Sherlock’s cargo hatches slide open. That’s when the converted merchantman showed her teeth – eight massive racks of missiles with enough firepower to sterilise a world, jacked out into firing position. They just needed time to put it on target.
Against a planet, with its predictable orbit, the firing solution for any projectile could potentially be worked out on a blackboard with chalk. But they wanted to hit particular parts of the planet and that required more time to establish their location.
“Bridge, Sensors. Enemy ship has just lit up her drive. She’s moving to intercept. Contact separation, we have incoming.”
“Point Defence batteries,” Willis said calmly, “Counter Measures, stand ready.”
The range was too long for the small Nameless general-purpose missiles, which would have overwhelmed Spectre’s slender defences. By contrast, their big long-range cap ship missiles were already starting to arc out. Two of their ships accelerated around the planet and brought their first salvo to bear. Spectre’s plasma cannons stabbed out but hit only a few. As they closed, the first of their Starfox missiles sped away. The space in front of Spectre erupted in fire as missile met missile and Spectre’s point defence guns rattled into action.
“Captain, the first of the starforts has orbited from behind the planet, it’s launching... Captain! It’s launching fighters.”
“Shit!” Willis muttered to herself as she mentally ran through the possibilities.
At this range the fighters would struggle to get to them before Sherlock was ready to fire. But they had another possibility – move forward to intercept and destroy the missiles launched by Sherlock. The Nameless had never used their fighters like that before but they’d seen humans do it often enough. Given the nature of Sherlock’s payload, the alien fighters had to be kept close to the planet. That meant distracting them. Spectre’s own nukes were part of the planned bombardment and in any case there weren’t enough of them to use as a sacrifice to get the others through.
Then there were their anti-ship missiles. While those could be sacrificed, they weren’t capable of making atmospheric re-entry. They needed to be directed at something the Nameless would defend.
“Fire Control, clear the nukes from the forward tubes and reload with standard anti-ship missiles. Then target the enemy space elevator!”
There was a pause on the line. When he did speak, the gunner sounded confused.
“Captain, at this range on full burn our missiles will be ballistic for over ten minutes before they reach the target.”
“Understood.”
“Captain, even if tethered a lot of our missiles are going…”
“Understood! Just put those missiles in the air!” Willis virtually snarled across the connection.
The ship rattled as the result of a near miss. On the holo Willis could see the Nameless fighters surging forward. Another starfort and a second starship were now also coming into view. Both started to throw missiles but didn’t co-ordinate, each platform firing separately. With only their big cap ship missiles available to them, they weren’t putting out enough fire to guarantee saturation of Spectre’s defence. Then on the holo two of the Nameless missiles that had made it past the Starfoxes disappeared, to be replaced by much smaller but faster moving projectiles. Mass driver missiles!
“Helm! Evasive manoeuvres! Coms! Signal Sherlock!”
The collision detection alarm sounded as Spectre jolted to port. On the holo Willis saw projectiles flash past them, missing by only a few hundred metres. She turned to the visual display just in time to see Sherlock’s communications tower disintegrate as a projectile punched straight through it.
“We’ve lost all coms from Sherlock.”
They’d been crunching the numbers. Had the evasive action thrown out the calculations? With the Sherlock’s coms gone there was no way to know. They just had to hang in and hope.
“Bridge, Fire Control. Commencing missile fire.”
The first of Spectre’s missiles accelerated away. Thirty-five seconds later a second pair followed as the system went to rapid fire. On the holo the Nameless fighters continued in, then hesitated. As Spectre fired more missiles, at least half started to drop back.
“Bridge, Fire Control. We are down to our last five Starfox missiles.”
“Understood Fire Control,” Willis replied.
Sherlock was still holding straight, steady and mute. How long did the bombard need? By now, she should have fired in accordance with their plan, but there was no way to tell how bad the delay was. On the display, Spectre’s missiles were starting to disappear. Unaccountably, one got through and slammed into the space elevator’s hub but the Nameless fighters picked the rest of them off. Diversion over, the alien fighters that had held back now surged forward.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 34
