Missiles erupted from their launchers on the crater lip and flashed across the intervening space in seconds, only to miss wildly as their highly sensitive guidance systems were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of returns. Under Schurenhofer’s control, their ventral turret gun picked off one or two missiles that only through chance ended up heading in their direction.
Alanna search desperately for the depression. Had it been a trick of the light? No, it was there, off to the left. With the lightest touch she pointed Dubious toward it. As they slotted in she heard a brief ping from astern as some part of Dubious clipped the surface and was ripped away. Alanna didn’t dare glance away as she pulled back on the throttle. The engines were barely at half power. Height, or lack of it, was now their protection, not speed. This was seat of the pants flying no pilot was trained for. They were safe from the point defence fire cutting across the sky above, but as Dubious hurtled down the shallow ravine, the fighter was lower than any of them could bear.
“Put the missile to manual,” Alanna grimly ordered as the ground began to rise ahead of them again.
Pushing the stick forward, she rammed the engines to all astern. Beside her, Schurenhofer cried with pain as she was thrown with bruising force against her restraints. Their velocity plummeted just as the fighter reached top of the crater. With their speed suddenly down to only a few metres per second, Dubious virtually floated over the Rose. The threat detection system began to scream again as the enemy radar abruptly found the elusive contact right above them, and missile batteries and guns slewed round to engage the enemy in their midst. As Alanna twisted the fighter’s nose downward, Schurenhofer opened up with their turret guns, indiscriminately spraying fire around the crater, shredding radar towers and guns.
Below, at the very bottom of the crater, the missile silos drifted across Alanna’s sights and her forefinger squeezed the trigger. The fighter’s anti-ship missile lanced downwards towards the silos. As it cleared the launcher, Alanna pointed Dubious’s nose towards a random edge of the crater and rammed the throttle all the way forward. The fighter leapt forwards like a stung horse. As they plunged over the crater edge, a massive flash from astern lit up the cockpit. Schurenhofer let out a celebratory whoop – and then something swatted them.
The control stick was knocked out of Alanna’s hand as Dubious was thrown into a tumble. The entire control board went dead and she lost all sense of up and down.
“Reactor off line!” Schurenhofer screamed as she flailed for the eject handle and missed.
As Alanna struggled with half dead controls, she felt no fear. In fact, she felt only peace. It would be quick, no lingering in a dead fighter, waiting for the air to run out.
But there was no follow up strike. As Dubious tumbled, Alanna caught sight of the horizon and wrestled the fighter’s half dead controls until they were at least pointed in the direction of travel.
“Restart the reactor,” she snapped.
“What d’ya fucking think I’m trying to do!” Schurenhofer snarled back, before shaking her head. “No response, we’ve had a full reactor scram. Engines... Christ, they must be hit. We’re not even getting status readings! We’re down to the backup batteries.”
Alanna only half heard. She twisted round in her seat and looked back the way they’d come. The Rose was now an inferno as the crater erupted in a succession of massive explosions. Several of the Nameless guns maintained fire, but they weren’t tracking anything. Locked on whatever had been their last command, they continued to send lines of burning plasma bolts into the sky. Alanna could see other fighters nosing in, checking to see if a follow up strike was required, but she doubted it would be. Nothing inside the crater could still be functional... or alive.
“Skipper, the ground,” Schurenhofer said with alarm.
Returning to the matter at hand, Alanna checked her controls. They were still on a ballistic curve from when the engines cut out.
“What have we got in propulsion?”
“Docking thrusters.”
Alanna waited for more.
“Just docking thrusters,” Schurenhofer emphasised.
In the moon’s low gravity it was enough to keep Dubious up, at least until the thrusters burned through their propellant. Another Raven, her wingman formed up alongside them.
“Dubious, are you receiving me!” the radio crackled.
“Confirmed, receiving you.”
“Dubious, your engines are gone! Sweet Jesus Christ, I can see your reactor casing! How the fuck are you still alive?”
Alanna closed her eyes for a moment.
“Envy, if I could reach you, I would hurt you!” she replied before tightening her grip on the column. “Envy, inform search and rescue they have another customer inbound.”
As she spoke she could hear Strike Leader making the call. Their primary targets were either destroyed or suppressed – the way was open.
___________________________
“This is Strike Leader to Mississippi: the road is clear, repeat the road is clear!”
The wait had been agonising. On his bridge, Crowe had listened to the radio chatter of the Home Fleet. Every now and then he would catch an occasional transmission from Deimos – and felt a sense of relief each time he did. But that was all they’d been able to do as they waited for their turn.
“Tactical, bring us on line. Navigation, make the calculations.”
As he gave the orders, Crowe turned to the trio of national military officers who had been a part of their vigil. They were already pulling themselves towards the bomb control board. The American nodded and the three turned their keys together. The board went active.
“Sir,” the American reported. “The weapon board is green. All three devices are now active and tied into the control grid.”
“Thank you, Gentlemen. You may take your posts.
Before they left Earth, documentation had been signed authorising that each man would receive a temporary fleet commission once the weapons were armed. All three left the bridge, heading for their assigned positions. On board San Demetrio and Nolan, other groups of officers were going through the same steps.
“Sir, the Squadron report is in,” the communications officer confirmed. “All ships are standing by.”
“Coms, signal San Demetrio that she is to lead. Gunboats are to bring up the rear. Jump when ready.”
Across such a short distance their time in jump space was no more than a few seconds. Then the squadron erupted back into real space.
“Navigator, report,” Crowe demanded.
“Heading’s good. Position is... good. Right on target sir,” the navigator reported. “We’re in the pipe.”
“Good. Order San Demetrio and Nolan to engage boosters.”
Crowe watched the holo fill back up as Mississippi began to receive radar returns. Ahead loomed the moon – if the fighters had missed any of the fixed defences, they’d find out any second now. The lunar mass shadow represented a killing ground they needed to cross as quickly as possible. Their solution was crude and old school: chemical booster rockets to give that initial push, fitted to the outside of each ship’s hull.
Usually used to launch bare hulls from the shipyards on Earth’s moon, no one was quite sure if they had ever been used to move a complete ship before. So when those on San Demetrio erupted into life, Crowe wasn’t the only one to let out a gasp of surprise. The lines of fire from each of the four boosters were as long as the transport herself and, even though Mississippi was on full burn, San Demetrio actually began to pull away from them.
Then it was their turn. From astern, Crowe felt the hull groan, the deck tremble, and the ship’s structure compress under the G load as their boosters fired.
“Engineering, watch out for resonance build-up on Number Three Engine’s pylon,” Crowe warned through clenched teeth as the acceleration pressed him back.
The Squadron strung out as the three ships zoomed in, their gunboats bringing up the rear. As the boosters reached the en
d of their endurance they jettisoned.
“Bridge, Sensors. Contact separation, we have incoming. Launch point is the moon,” the intercom alerted them.
“I see them,” Crowe replied as he felt the tension rise.
As the three ships resumed formation, the huge bay doors in the flanks of San Demetrio and Nolan opened and armatures telescoped out, each one with a box on the end. This was their part in the plan: as each arm reached full extension, the front and rear of its box exploded. Little more than a rack of recoilless rifles, they unleashed a wall of ball bearings. These took several minutes to reach the incoming missiles but when they did, every single Nameless missile disappeared from the plot.
“Keep it up guys,” Crowe muttered to himself as the arms jettisoned the expended packs and retracted for rearming.
There hadn’t been time to convert the two vessels into barrage ships. Following the introduction by the Nameless of recoilless rifle missiles as battlefield weapon however, humanity had done what it did so well – make do and adapt. Thanks to their spacious cargo bays, Nolan and San Demetrio could store more than enough rifle packs to simply fill space with heavy counter fire – so long as they held out.
For thirty minutes the three ships continued to accelerate in. Missiles sporadically erupted from the lunar surface but the fighters had done their work well and Mississippi’s flak guns remained silent.
“Contact, fresh contact!”
The suddenness of the report made Crowe jump and when he regained his composure, the cluster of red contacts on the holo made him grimace. They were on the squadron’s right flank, with the moon on the left. No matter what he did now, they would take fire from both sides.
“Tactical?” Crowe asked.
“Estimating one cap ship, six cruisers and ten escorts – they came in right on the Blue Line.”
“Navigation, how long to orbit?”
“Nine minutes to orbital insertion, we cannot, repeat cannot take evasive action,” came the tense reply.
“Understood. Guns, stand by to engage.”
A swarm of new contacts appeared on the holo as the Nameless flanking force opened fire. Nolan responded by deploying rifle packs to fire into the broadside, but this time the missiles were curving in on long separate tracks. And it wasn’t just missiles.
“Bridge, Tactical. Force composition alteration! The cap ship is launching fighters.”
“Shit,” Crowe muttered to himself.
The Nameless fighters sped away from their carrier and, unlike the missiles, didn’t head directly for the squadron. Instead they spread out, some looking to pursue from astern and others working their way round to their front. The carrier must have been a new type. It was smaller but had put out its birds faster than any they’d seen before.
“Tactical, give me an analysis. Can those fighters achieve firing range before we reach our objective?”
“Confirmed, sir.”
Crowe’s mind raced through the possibilities. San Demetrio and Nolan were carrying nukes just in case, but there had never been any serious expectation that they’d make it to the gate. They were there to absorb Nameless fire, any way they could. With her armoured hull, Mississippi would be the one to make the last charge in. But aside from four point defence guns, she was vulnerable to assault from behind.
“Coms, signal Nolan we’re taking number two position. Navigation, adjust our heading and give Helm the new settings.”
Crowe heard the navigator let out an alarmed hiss before crouching over her terminal, her fingers dancing over the keyboard. Astern, the tone dropped as their engines dialled back to make the critical insertion.
“Uploading!” shouted the navigator.
The engines surged powerfully and they slid past Nolan. Mississippi jolted violently as she made orbital insertion at a velocity that under any other circumstances would have bought its captain a permanent ground posting. The ship bucked as she powered in. At this velocity, they wanted to slingshot out, but the helm’s direction was forcing Mississippi in, gathering speed as she went. Crowe could only hang on as they powered round the curve of the moon. More missiles accelerated up from a surface that was now less than fifty kilometres below them. The gunboats raced forward to engage, guns rattling and picking off missiles. Mississippi’s joined in with her guns, while point defence stabbed out lines of plasma pulses terminating in a hail of explosions.
Some missiles made it through. One gunboat took a direct hit and vaporised as it raced down the squadron’s flank laying down chaff. It was all Crowe could do to cling to his chair when a missile punched through the ventral wing and the cruiser lurched violently. Seconds later, the first of the Nameless fighters caught them and gunfire flashed back and forth as Nolan and the gunboats fought a frantic rearguard action. Mississippi continued to accelerate as the transport and gunboats began to fall behind in their battle with the fighters. Crowe could offer them nothing more than prayers as one gunboat after another was picked off. Nolan took a toll of her tormentors, her rifle packs allowing her to fire indiscriminately astern. But Nameless gunfire and missiles savaged her unarmoured hull.
“Coming up on slingshot!” shouted the navigator. “Thirty seconds!”
Ahead the gate was coming into view.
“Bridge, Coms. Transmission from Nolan!”
“Mississippi, this is Nolan. We’ve taken heavy engine damage! We’re…”
The sound of an explosion interrupted the speaker. Crowe could see with a sinking heart she wouldn’t just fail to keep up. Her port side engine smashed, the transport was angling inwards towards the moon – its gravity had her.
“We’re out of control,” the speaker on Nolan shouted again. “All hands, abandon ship! Abandon ship!”
Escape pods started to eject as the ship plunged downward. Crowe tore his eyes away from the battle astern as ahead and still locked in the Lagrange point, the gate station came into view. Mississippi and San Demetrio launched themselves up and out of orbit, just as the universe ahead of them erupted in flame.
Literally hundreds of missiles big and small launched from scores of weapons satellites. They met a wall of counter fire from San Demetrio’s flak packs. Most, almost all, died, by the sheer law of averages a few leaked through. The flak guns on Mississippi and the transport tried to catch the leakers, but there were now so many contacts, automatic systems were being overwhelmed. Missiles were still coming from the starships astern and the two human ships looked like comets as fire blazed around them.
Mississippi’s port wing was sheared away, too fast for Crowe to even register what had hit them. San Demetrio took it far worse, though. The front quarter of the ship simply dissolved under multiple strikes. Fragments of her hull and centrifuge tumbled back, forcing Mississippi’s helm to take frantic evasive action. But most of the mid-ships, with its rifle packs, survived and the transport ploughed forward into the deluge of fire, firing as fast as her crew could reload.
“Tactical, have we got lock on the target?” Crowe shouted.
Mississippi jerked as a missile got through. A glance at the damage control repeater panel confirmed her armour had kept it out.
“Confirmed! We have lock!”
“Helm! Prepare to lock on course. All hands, prepare to evacuate!” Crowe ordered just as a big cap ship missile found its way through from astern. Its terminal guidance locked onto the strongest signal and powered into San Demetrio’s starboard rear quarter. The explosion shattered the engineering spaces and must have killed most of the crew. With a last dying splutter of her engines, San Demetrio tumbled end over end, one of her flak guns still firing on automatic. Crowe could see what was about to happen, but there was no time to react in the split second before the flak gun stitched a line across his ship.
The armour on Mississippi’s bows wasn’t proof against a kinetic strike of that size. One flak round crashed through and burst half way down the length of the hollowed out centrifuge.
On the bridge, sparks flew and equipment
shattered as shrapnel flashed past even faster than thought. Crowe just had time to register the helmsman at his station suffer a direct hit and virtually explode in a crimson spray. The holo flickered as the mess of blood and tissue blocked half its emitters.
“Auto pilot offline!” Crowe heard the Navigator scream as he savagely brushed blood off his visor.
On what remained of the holo display, a green line showed their intended course and a yellow line the course they were actually on, and the two lines were diverging. As she powered past the shattered remains of San Demetrio, Mississippi was already drifting off course. They were about to miss!
Slapping the release on his harness Crowe forced himself up and out of his seat. On full burn it was hard to pull forward toward helm. A sensor operator got there first and snatched at the helm’s manual control. Crowe grabbed the man by the shoulder and pushed him gently to one side.
“I have this,” he said and caught a brief look of gratitude from the other man as he elbowed what was left of the helmsman out of the seat.
“Damage Control,” Crowe called as he got them back onto course, “report.”
“Navigation sub-system has lost power and the Lazarus systems are looking for another link. Just give it a minute!” Craven shouted back.
Minute? Might as well ask for an hour, Crowe thought as he directed the ship back on course. On the helm display, the green and yellow lines converged and merged, then jolted apart as another impact shook the ship.
“Bridge, Damage Control. We’ve lost Engine Four!”
San Demetrio, Nolan and all but two of the gunboats were now gone, leaving Mississippi and her last two escorts to charge into the maelstrom of fire. Crowe could hear the cruiser’s own flak packs starting to crack off in desperate defence. The tactical display showed the gate station was attempting to break out of the Lagrange point, but the thrusters along its flank were struggling to overcome the inertia of the station’s mass.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 39
