“Missile away!” a voice on the radio announced.
Second later, they saw an anti-ship missile plunge downward and into the concealed hangar. A flash of light from behind lit up the cockpit.
“Target destroyed!”
“Strike Leader, target destroyed! We are returning…”
The sight of her wingman taking a direct hit suddenly interrupted her. She watched, transfixed, as the cockpit ejected seconds before the shattered Raven disintegrated and fell away.
“Shit,” she hissed. “Strike Leader, I’m returning to my holding position.”
___________________________
Lewis winced inwardly as the blip representing a cap ship missile merged with that of the Loki and a moment later, the heavy cruiser started flashing multiple damage codes. So far their losses hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared. One destroyer had been destroyed and the cruiser Charles Martel so badly damaged she could do little more than shelter inside the perimeter.
The Nameless had learned from past experience. Thanks to the presence of the barrage ships, their mass salvoes – so characteristic of their tactics in the past – now merely represented a waste of ammunition. Instead, they were spreading out their ships and directing in steady streams of missiles from multiple bearings, searching for chinks in the barrage ships’ protective walls of fire, always picking on one target.
At this range it should have been just cap ship missiles, but here too the Nameless revealed another change. Their smaller dual-purpose missiles now made a brief burn after launch, then powered down and went ballistic until within a thousand kilometres of the Home Fleet, at which point they reactivated and accelerated in for final attack. It was a tactic that gave them most of the advantages of close range fire while staying well out of harm’s way. Within the Home Fleet’s formation, squadrons manoeuvred to offer as much mutual protection as possible.
“What have you got for me, Captain?” Lewis asked as he sensed Sheehan approach.
“The fighters report they have suppressed or destroyed sixty-five percent of the lunar targets but they’ve expended ninety percent of their ordnance.”
“Have they got the critical ones?”
“All but one, sir. The installation codenamed the Rose is still operational.”
Lewis considered his options. The Mississippi group was at best a glass hammer and if it failed, he would have no choice but to take his ships into the meat grinder he so desperately wanted to avoid.
“Bridge, Admiral,” Captain Holfe’s voice came across the intercom. “Enemy fighters are leaving their holding positions.”
Lewis turned back towards the holo. The Nameless fighters weren’t approaching the Home Fleet. They were instead on a course to cross over the top, towards the moon.
“Damn it,” Lewis cursed.
“Sir?”
“Captain, they’ve realised they we aren’t attacking those installations just to clear our own path.”
Like the Rose, there were installations on the far side of the moon, which although not in a position to threaten the Home Fleet, would be perfectly placed to fire on Mississippi. The Nameless commander or its staff had worked out that the Home Fleet was a decoy, one that had already sucked their fleet away from the moon.
“Coms, instruct our escort fighters to block the enemy fighters,” Lewis ordered.
“Which ones?”
“All of them!” Lewis snapped back.
On the holo, a quarter of the Nameless fleet had turned away and was now going full burn for the Blue Line. Lewis wracked his brain, searching for a way to block or slow them down. Once over the Blue Line, the Nameless would be free to jump and, if he were right, that jump would place them on the far side of the moon, ready to intercept the Mississippi group.
“Captain, order Strike Leader to put all remaining assets onto the Rose. We must neutralise it at all costs and we must do it quickly. Send a message drone to our strike boat carriers. Order them to launch a maximum effort strike against the enemy units heading for the Blue Line. They must stop them or at the very least slow them down. And turn the fleet through ninety degrees towards the enemy’s mobile units. There’s no point getting any closer to the planet now.”
Sheehan took a quick glance at the holo.
“Those enemy ships still have fighters escorting them, sir,” he said. “The strike boats will take serious losses.”
Lewis didn’t hesitate for a second with his reply.
“That’s unavoidable, Captain.”
___________________________
Seated at the back of Freyia’s bridge, where his presence was just about tolerated, Jeff followed events intently. The atmosphere was one of near silent and intense concentration. He’d been allowed to set his suit intercom to listen to the command channel, while he panned his camera across the bridge. This was his first proper space battle and it was certainly different from what he’d even half expected.
Captain Hicks gave orders in short terse bursts and then waited to see the consequences of those orders as he stared at the bridge holo. With the bridge decompressed, there was no other sound except from the intercom. Jeff could feel the deck plating trembling from the force of the engines and small jolts each time the plasma cannons fired. But there was no sound and that struck him as profoundly... well, it was just wrong! So he attempted to fill the silence with his own commentary.
“As you can see from the holo,” he said to his future audience, “there are no clever computer graphics here. Those are neither needed nor wanted. Instead, everything is kept as simple as possible. Yet, it still takes years for the officers and crew to learn how to read what they are shown. With scores of ships and hundreds of other contacts like missiles and fighters, it isn’t hard to be simply overwhelmed by the amount of data received.”
That was certainly truth in journalism. After his time on reconnaissance ships, Jeff had thought he could read a display holo, but this? There was no doubt stuff was happening, but he could understand none of it.
On the intercom, an alarm briefly sounded and the holo flashed red before zooming in. A mass of detail disappeared as the focus switched to just the Freyia, her squadron and the immediate area of space around them... and the streams of red blips coming right at them!
“Bridge, Tactical. Contacts crossing inner perimeter, time to impact forty seconds!”
“Coms, signal Valkyrie we are taking evasive action,” Hicks shouted. “Helm, turn us towards them. Point Defence batteries, commence, commence, commence! Countermeasures on my mark, full spread. All hands, brace for impact!”
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are being targeted by multiple enemy ships firing from several different directions. Even combined with those of other two ships in the squadron, Freyia’s flak guns can’t target all the missiles in the time available. So Captain Hicks has turned his ship into the oncoming fire to present the smallest possible target,”
That was what Jeff wanted to say in his best and calmest professional voice, but if he said anything at all, it was an incoherent mumble as every muscle in his body attempted to clench simultaneously and Freyia turned into the storm. In their sponsons, her flak guns rattled away knocking down incoming missiles, while in the ventral and dorsal turrets, plasma cannons speared at targets more elusive than they were designed to deal with. Around the cruiser, space erupted in explosions and in flame.
“Countermeasures!” Hicks roared, thumping the armrest of his command chair.
From across Freyia’s hull, small rockets lifted from their silos, bursting between the cruiser and the onrushing missiles, scattering a curtain of radar-disrupting chaff. Some missiles lost their lock and detonated and others veered away. As they plunged through the chaff, most of those left could not adjust in time to steer in. But a few held their course and charged in with murder in mind. In his seat Jeff could only hang on as the cruiser bucked like a horse gone wild.
“Cap ship missiles! One to port! Two to starboard!” someone called out.
<
br /> On the holo, Jeff could see the three big ship killers and with them another half dozen of the smaller dual-purpose missiles.
“Helm! Port five degrees, engines emergency power! Fire control, concentrate fire to port!” Hicks bellowed.
The red blips converged with the big green blip at the centre of the holo, the one symbolising Freyia.
“Oh God! We’ll be kill…”
Jeff didn’t get a chance to finish.
There was no noise or flash, just an almighty concussion. The side of Jeff’s helmet smashed against the nearest wall. Lights flashed inside his head, his teeth snapped down on his tongue and he heard someone scream. For several seconds he was as dazed as a punch-drunk boxer. Then, as voices resumed across the command channel, Jeff gathered his wits.
“Jesus Christ!” he muttered.
Droplets of blood were stuck to the inside of his visor.
“We’re still alive, but I think we’ve been hit bad,” he mumbled around his already swelling tongue.
“Damage Control, report,” the Captain was demanding.
“Bridge, Damage Control. We’ve lost the port wing, looks like that cap missile took it, and the upper port passive array has been torn away. Point defence gun P1 primary command line has been severed. We’ve got some splinter damage in Frames Five to Eight. We took two hits from dual-purpose missiles but the armour kept them out. Confirmed, we are still combat worthy.”
Hicks grunted an acknowledgement.
“Helm, get us back into formation before the bastards have another go.”
On the holo, the next stream of missiles was on its way, another ship was about the meet the storm. God willing – if there was such a being Jeff thought – they’d be as good, or lucky, as Freyia.
___________________________
“This is Strike Leader to all wings, sound off anyone who still has anti-ship ordnance.”
“Strike Leader,” Alanna replied as she flew down a shallow valley, “this is D for Dubious, confirming I have ordnance.”
The old Nameless dual-purpose missiles, with which they started the war, had always been a bit of a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. A bit sluggish for anti-fighter work but too small for taking on ships but their new missiles seemed to be dedicated anti-fighter weapons. As a result, flying at an altitude of several kilometres above the surface had proved too dangerous. Perversely it was safer to fly low, where Dubious could shelter in the valleys that criss-crossed the surface. Safer but not completely safe – for pilots used to the emptiness of deep space, flying mere tens of metres away from the sides or bottom of a valley was something of which they had no experience. Too many weren’t flying low enough to avoid the fire of point defence type guns abruptly opening fire from the surface. Alanna heard too many pilots’ last exclamation or scream.
“Dubious, this is Strike Leader. Make for the Rose and report in once you are on station.”
“Roger that,” Alanna replied as she glanced at the navigation screen for the best route to the target.
“I thought one of Akagi’s squadrons was tasked with that,” Schurenhofer said as she rotated the ventral turret in case another enemy battery might be lurking the end of valley.
“Wing, get the hell back onto position,” Alanna shouted across the radio.
Astern, her new wingman kept drifting upwards, toward the false safety of clear space.
“A whole squadron went in,” she replied to Schurenhofer. “Let’s hope they have at least softened things up a bit.”
Ten minutes later they cleared the valleys and entered a broad flat open area. As she saw the carnage Schurenhofer let out a sigh.
“Oh, this will be worth a whole chapter in the handbook on coping with disappointment,” she said.
The Rose was sited in the crater of a volcano, with a dozen cap ship missile launchers protected on all sides by stone walls. More batteries and dozens of point defence guns studded the lip of the crater. Unlike much of the rest of the moon, the area surrounding the Rose was a flat and almost featureless plain stretching at least thirty kilometres in every direction. It was the crown jewel of the Nameless defences and Akagi’s pilots had beaten themselves bloody trying to get through. As she skirted the edge of the plain, Alanna could see the wrecks of their fighters scattered below.
On the radio, she heard Strike Leader mustering what remained of their assets.
“Sounds like we’ve got about four anti-ship missiles left between us,” Schurenhofer said as she listened. “We must have given them a kicking everywhere else.”
“Which probably will count for f– all if we don’t get this,” Alanna replied as she surveyed the battlefield.
“Strike Leader to D for Dubious,” came across the radio. “We have identified the command bunker, we’re sending imagery now.”
A picture appeared on her communication screen. With the cap ship missile silos taking up so much of the available space, the inside of the crater was crowded. And because the volcanic rock was so difficult to excavate, they weren’t dug in deep. In fact, they stood densely packed, protruding from the surface.
“They mustn’t have had time to dig in,” Alanna called.
“One missile in and we’ll get a mighty bang,” Schurenhofer replied.
The area around the Rose lit up as the installation’s point defence batteries erupted. Lines of plasma bolts pulsed out, sweeping the space around and above their target.
“Crap on a stick. How the hell will we get through that?” Schurenhofer said, awestruck.
“Dubious,” Strike Leader ordered. “Hold at the southern edge for my command.”
“Understood,” Alanna replied.
As she spoke half a dozen Ravens broke cover and made for the Rose. Four ran interference and one laid down covering fire, while the last Raven – the one with the missile – charged in astern.
“Get lower you stupid bastards, get lower!” Alanna urged through gritted teeth.
But they weren’t. They were space fighter pilots – not trained, equipped or experienced at nap of the earth flying. They weren’t like her. They hadn’t flown and fought among the asteroids of Junction Station.
If the fire from the Rose had seemed ferocious before, now it was like nothing Alanna had ever seen before. The point defence guns switched to rapid fire as the Nameless sought to leave the Ravens with nowhere to go. A dozen anti-fighter missiles raced towards them. Alanna flinched as first one, and then another Raven was blown out of the sky. Then a burst of gunfire intersected with the fighter carrying the precious missile and tore its wing off at the root. One engine exploded and the stricken craft plunged downward. At the last moment the pilot managed to spin his plane round and use the remaining engine to kill most of the velocity. The Raven bellied in, throwing up dust and rock as it bounced across the plain, breaking up as it went.
“Strike Leader to D for Dubious.”
The strike leader’s voice had the monotone of someone who knew he was ordering another person to their death.
“You’re up. Stand by for me to get planes into position to run interference.”
Madness, Alanna thought to herself. One of its definitions was to try the same thing but expect different results. To simply throw herself at the Rose in the same old way would simply see her brought down in the same old way. Guiding Dubious round the edge of the plain, she searched with her eyes – the old Mark One eyeball offered more than any of Dubious’s hi-tech toys. They needed something new. The only visible feature was a small hill roughly to the west of the Rose, but it was thirty kilometres away, in space terms a barely mentionable distance but here, a killing zone without...?
“What’s that?” Alanna asked.
“What’s what?” Schurenhofer replied.
“That,” Alanna said pointing.
Leading from close to the foot of the hill to within a kilometre or two of the Rose was a faint shadow. Pulling back the stick she angled Dubious upwards and Schurenhofer turned the ventral turret towards
the shadow. On the screen Alanna, could make out the barest dip in the ground, forming a channel from the hill to the Rose’s doorstep.
It was their way in.
“You aren’t?” Schurenhofer said.
“I am,” Alanna replied firmly.
“Strike Leader to Dubious, are you ready to make your run?”
“Confirmed Strike Leader, I’m ready. I’ll be making my run from the west.”
“Confirmed Dubious, from the west. All units stand by to run interference. This is damn near our last shot people. Make it work.”
“So no pressure then,” Schurenhofer muttered as Alanna turned off Dubious’s collision warning alarm. “Skipper, how low do we plan to go?”
“Scarily low,” Alanna replied. “E for Envy, join the interference groups, I’m going solo for this one.”
Alanna worked her way round to behind the hill, flying a wide circle to get lined up.
“Tally Ho,” she said quietly to herself before speaking into radio. “Dubious to all units, commencing run.”
She pushed the throttle forward and the hill loomed large. Alanna flipped Dubious onto its back and dropped lower. Schurenhofer gave her a frightened glance and hunched over her console. The lunar surface flashed past as they gained speed and dropped still lower. The ground rose up to meet them as they reached the edge of the hill and Alanna pushed the stick forward.
Still upside down, they skimmed up the side of the hill with the ground just metres from their heads, the surface just a grey blur now as they sped on. Between the ground and the Raven’s nosecone, Alanna had only a tiny slit of visibility to their front. Cresting the hill, Schurenhofer popped the last of their chaff, just as Nameless targeting radars locked on and their threat detection system wailed. Alanna yanked the stick back and slammed the throttle to full. Dubious charged down the hill, the canopy now only centimetres above the unforgiving rocks. The threat detection system cut out as the Nameless radar lost them in a flurry of confusing ground returns.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 38
