These were all wider concerns that weren’t part of Berg’s mental list of problems. Black Prince was now alongside Saladin. From a visual inspection of her twisted hull, Berg could already tell that if they did manage to get her home, it would only be so the dockyards could remove any parts that were still good. Commodore Dandolo had transferred across but not to command. With both his legs mangled beyond any hope of recovery and Saladin’s own sickbay now ruined, he’d been brought aboard to stabilise. Once the fleet’s support train arrived he’d be transferred again to a hospital ship. For now, Berg was senior officer for the Twenty-third Cruiser Squadron.
“Final damage reports, Captain – ours and Zulu’s,” Commander Chuichi said as he passed over a computer pad.
Berg skimmed down it. The Chief had made his usual careful appraisal of the engine conditions. Any other damage was little more than cosmetic. Their squadron mate Zulu had also got away clean.
“Send to the Flagship that we are fully combat worthy.”
“I’ve seen reports from other ships. Looks like the fleet is now divided into two groups, the undamaged and the severely damaged, with not much in between.”
“That kamikaze thing will never work again,” Berg observed. “We’re wise to it now.”
Chuichi opened his mouth to reply just as the command channel of the intercom buzzed to life.
“Captain to the Bridge! Captain to the Bridge!”
“On my way, what is it?”
“Captain, the fleet train has just jumped in. Several ships are flagging damage codes.”
How much things could change in just a few hours, Berg thought to herself as she lay in her bunk. No Nameless forces were present but the Second Fleet was about to have to retreat back to the Junction Line with its tail between its legs. Just as Admiral Gordon had feared, they had either overtaken Nameless or run into units their enemy had deliberately left behind. Whether by accident or design, they had come across the fleet’s supply train. There hadn’t been many Nameless ships but they had pressed in regardless of loss. Before they succumbed to the escort, they’d put missiles into two of the fleet’s biggest fuel tankers. Now the fleet now didn’t have enough fuel to go forward or even hold its position. News had raced around the ship before she or any of the other officers could do anything and morale aboard Black Prince dropped like a stone, as the crew figured out that this setback had virtually nullified all the efforts of the past few weeks. One of her communications ratings, a big tough man with a reputation as a hell raiser, had been reduced to tears after he overheard a conversation between the drop carrier Overlord and someone on the surface, begging for food supplies.
On her belt her intercom buzzed and Berg wearily pushed the earpiece into place.
“Captain here.”
“Skipper, we’re being signalled by the Flagship. The C-in-C wants to speak to you, privately, ma’am.”
Odd.
“Put the connection through to my cabin,” she ordered as she pulled on her jacket.
A moment later, Admiral Fengzi’s face appeared on the screen.
“Captain, this will have to be brief,” he said. “You know the fuel situation. If I am to get the fleet back to Junction without leaving ships drifting, then we have to leave within the next six hours.”
Berg’s eyes widened with shock.
“I didn’t realise it was that close to the wire, sir,” she said.
“It’s not. But if we move now, then that leaves us with two fast tankers and their load ‘spare’. Captain, you know our role here was to put pressure on the Worms. Well it’s pretty obvious that they’ve realised that the battle around The Spur is now the only one worth fighting. If they can win that, then everything they have abandoned here can be regained in the long term.”
“What do you need me to do, sir?”
“You put forward the idea of a limited blockade. Well, now we’ll have to go with a version of that. I’m detaching your cruiser squadron and the First Scout Cruiser Group. The two squadrons will travel separately but your orders are to make for the Spur at your best speed and engage targets of opportunity – supply bases and other fixed facilities being the priority.”
“We may not catch them, sir. They’re faster than us in jump space and they have a head start.”
“I know that, Captain, but you can take the direct routes to make up ground and frankly, we have to make the attempt.”
“How far am I to go?”
“The Spur, Captain, or as close as your fuel will take you. My staff is drawing up formal orders now. I know you may not catch them, Captain Berg, but even if you can nip at their heels, that might be enough.”
“I understand, sir. We’ll do our best.”
As the Second Fleet suffered the ignominy of retreat, four cruisers embarked out beyond the borders of human claimed space. To have gone from being a minor cog in a larger whole to fifty percent of the entire show took some getting used to. For days after they detached from the fleet, every time she looked at the bridge holo, Berg caught herself wondering where the other ships were. Curiously however, although morale on board Black Prince had nose-dived following the battle over Landfall, it had now soared. Certainly she herself felt better to be on the advance. She’d expected Admiral Fengzi to transfer in a flag officer to command the detached squadron but no such move was made before they jumped away. So even though this formation would normally have been well beyond her rank, Berg remained the commanding officer.
For days they travelled at a pace Berg judged to be the best compromise between speed and economy. The scout cruisers Herald and Messenger were to directly follow the path of Nameless space gates, while Black Prince, Zulu and their tanker the Ohio, took the straight line route in its attempt to get ahead of the retreating Nameless fleet. Unlike the Home Fleet when it had journeyed to The Spur, when they dropped back into real space to purge their heat sinks, it was inside solar systems. Several times they found gates and destroyed them but it took six days after departing Landfall before they found something solid.
“Bridge, Sensors. Contacts bearing zero, one, zero dash, zero, zero, one.”
“Strength?” Berg asked.
“Ten to twenty, in close order, accurate count cannot be determined at this range, ma’am.”
This far out from charted space, their star maps weren’t entirely accurate and the squadron had come out only just inside the edge of the system. The contacts were over four light hours away, on the far side of the system, close to but outside the mass shadow of a small moon.
“Twenty ships,” Commander Chuichi said quietly rubbing his chin. “That’s a lot to take on with two.”
“Assuming they are even still there,” she replied studying the holo. “Tactical, give me a current position estimate, assuming enemy contacts hold current velocity and course.”
On the holo a second cluster of blips appeared.
“They’re moving slowly enough to be able to jump at any time,” Chuichi observed.
Berg made no reply. At four light hours the Nameless, assuming they were even still there, couldn’t yet be aware of the human ships. Their long-range real time sensors that gave them such advantages at closer quarters only seemed to be effective up to a few light seconds. So right now, Black Prince and Zulu were in a fleeting position of advantage. She could consult with Captain Ewald of Zulu, but he couldn’t see any more than she could.
“Coms, order the tanker to jump clear, then signal Zulu to prepare to jump,” she said before turning to Chuichi. “We’ll make a jump in eighty thousand kilometres out from their port flank. We’ll inflict as much damage as we can, then jump away again before they can counter, assuming anything is there.”
Twenty minutes later the crew were closed up at action stations and from the bows came the rising whine of the jump drive building up. Black Prince’s two plasma cannon turrets were already trained out to starboard, ready to engage.
“All sections report ready. Zulu reports as ready,” came the
report.
“Very good,” Berg replied as she absently tightened her restraint harness. “Navigation, jump.”
The thump of the jump out was followed seconds later by that of the jump in. Come on, come on, Berg thought to herself as she waited for the holo. No blips appeared in the estimated position. At some point in the last four hours they’d jumped away, it was the most likely scenario, yet the bitterly disappointing…
“Contact! Multiple contacts, bearing: zero eight, seven dash zero, zero, one. Range: one hundred and thirteen kay and closing.”
Three blips appeared on the holo and Berg’s mind began to race as she took in what the display was presenting. They were outside of plasma cannon range, not by a lot but by enough so that they could peg at Black Prince without them being able to respond. It was exactly the situation she didn’t want. But the three were moving slowly and towards the small moon. Black Prince and Zulu were already moving more quickly and could accelerate harder than any Nameless ship. The display indicated the three hostiles were already too deep inside the moon’s small mass shadow to jump. There was still an opportunity to close to gun range and hit them before jumping away.
“Helm, turn eighty degrees to starboard, all ahead on engines!” she snapped. “Navigator, keep the jump calculations rolling.”
Berg barely heard the acknowledgements as she stared at the holo. Tactical identified the three contacts as escorts, early versions. None of the three was under power. In fact their engines were cold and dark. At any moment, the Nameless ships would begin to react. Would they attempt to make a run in real space or turn and fire? Either way, their first action would likely be to transmit the alarm. Seconds seemed to drag past like minutes. She frowned and looked at the bridge clock. Time wasn’t dragging, what felt like minutes actually were minutes, yet the three ships hadn’t reacted.
“Sensors, confirm we are getting no reading off their engines?”
“That is... confirmed Captain, passives are reading some residual heat but that is diminishing, not increasing. Captain, there is something else odd. The contacts’ current vector puts them on a collision course for that moon.”
There was puzzlement in the voice of the sensor officer and Berg shared it. Military grade engines could crash start but that wasn’t something any captain really wanted to do.
“Orbital insertion?” she asked.
“No Captain, unless they change course radically and soon, they will not go into orbit. They’ll go straight in.”
“What is the range to target?”
“One zero one, Captain.”
Berg bit at her lip, it didn’t feel like an ambush or if it was, it was a stupid one.
“Guns, target the nearest contact and fire.”
“Captain, be advised target is four thousand kilometres beyond effective range.”
“Understood, fire as instructed.”
At such range the firing solution should have been difficult. It took the plasma bolts several seconds to reach the target ship, any course adjustment by which would have been enough to cause a miss. Yet the target made no move as the six bolts bore down on it. Berg watched for a reaction. The six blips converged and disappeared as they impacted the escort. The damage couldn’t have been serious – at such range the plasma bolts would have lost coherency as their sustainer fields collapsed.
“Bridge, Sensors. Target heading is changing!”
“Sensors, give me a visual.”
For a moment she thought it was finally turning to face them, but no. She could see atmosphere escaping where the hits had pierced the inner hull. Jets of escaping gas caused the ship to slowly tumble. Meanwhile, the other two continued to drift along serenely. Powered down and on course to crash into a moon, there was only one explanation. These ships were being scuttled!
“Navigator, could we catch those ships to board them?”
The question was automatic and unthinking. To take a ship in anything resembling working condition, would be an intelligence coup beyond measure.
“That’s a negative Captain,” came the reply after a moment. “They will impact the moon before we could come alongside them. Our shuttles wouldn’t be able to do it either.”
“Alright, make calculations to rendezvous with the tanker,” she said as she watched the three doomed ships plummet to destruction.
“We’ll have to move faster,” Berg said across the video link, its screen was split between that of the captains of Zulu and Ohio, “because right now, we’ve been left behind.”
The two cruisers were on either side of the tanker. Fuel lines pulsed as hydrogen was forced along them. Berg had originally planned to travel one system further up before pausing to refuel but the sight of those undamaged ships cast aside, had caused a rethink.
“Well unless you two want to give me a push, I’ve already been doing my best speed,” Ohio’s captain said bluntly.
“I know. That’s why I plan for us to move at our best speed,” she replied. “Unless we get ahead or at least up to them, we’re not achieving anything.”
“What? That leaves me on my…”
“I know,” Berg cut him off. “Make your cool down stops in interstellar space and you’ll be safe. I know there’s a risk but we have to take the chance. I’ve had a think about this. It would make sense to abandon and destroy damaged ships that couldn’t fight. If ships simply couldn’t match the pace then you’d leave them to follow at their best speed. But those ships were scuttled and scuttled in a way that wouldn’t use resources. That says to me that they were probably stripped of fuel and munitions – yes I know I don’t have proof of that, but it is the only reasonable explanation.”
“Which would suggest the Worms are on right on the wire for supplies,” Captain Ewald said.
“Yes, if we take out one or two gates ahead of them, then any gateships are stranded. To do that we have to get ahead of them, but we stand no chance doing that travelling at the Ohio’s best speed.”
“Still, we need a destination and a rendezvous point for the Ohio to meet us.”
“The next few systems we skip completely,” she replied as she brought up a starmap. “But after that, star density drops and the routes the Nameless can take to the Spur narrow. See these two systems here. With full tanks, they’re within our range. Reconnaissance didn’t check them for fear of being spotted but the Nameless route to the Spur has to go through one or the other. I’ll take one, Zulu will take the other and, God willing, one of us will find something.”
“We’ll need to let Herald and Messenger know.” Ewald said. “If for no other reason than to ensure someone knows where we are.”
“Agreed,” Berg replied with a nod. “We have their planned route. We’ll launch a message drone each to three different systems and set them to make real space re-entry at the edge of the system where the Nameless can’t get them and transmit. Hopefully the two of them will be able to crack on at a bit more speed and reach us.”
___________________________
The days that followed were mostly spent in jump space, with their stops in real space cut as short as possible. With the decision made, Berg was left with a lot of time to second guess it. There was a sense of disquiet on board ship, especially once they separated from Zulu. Out here, at the very edge of the galaxy, they all felt very small and alone. Nobody said anything to her directly, not even the officers, but there were little indications. System checks on the emergency message drones and the escape pod’s hibernation capsules started to feature more prominently in the engineering reports. If something did happen to the Ohio, they would be left without enough fuel to go either forward or back.
“So?” Berg asked as she leaned over the shoulder of the sensor operator.
The close proximity of his captain was making the rating nervous, but after days of travel and nights of restless sleep, and now that they had finally reached the system that might be the Nameless route through to the Spur, Berg no longer had the patience to wait.
&n
bsp; “We’re still getting reading from the passives, ma’am,” he reported. “It is a complex system.”
“It is a young star, Captain,” said the duty sensor officer. “A lot of the planets haven’t finished composing so there is a lot of material out there. A lot of blind spots.”
“What about the gas giant? Any reading on it?” she demanded.
They had come out at the edge of the system, beyond the heliopause and it was as well they had. There were planets, twelve at least, although going by the smears of asteroids, most of them hadn’t yet finished forming. In another few billion years the whole system would stabilise but for now this part of the cosmic dance was still chaotic. Amidst that chaos, something as small as a space gate would be difficult to see, even assuming it was there.
“Captain, the gas giant is approximately one eightieth larger than Saturn. Emissions indicate high levels of hydrogen in its atmosphere.”
“Concentrate the passives on it. If anything is here, then it is around that.”
“There may well be nothing here,”
“I know, Commander,” Berg said with a shrug “but now we’re here...”
After a further twenty minutes, Chuichi spoke again.
“It appears the gas giant had two or more moons that collided. They’ve spread a lot of debris between the planet’s Red and Blue Lines.”
When Berg made no reply he continued: “Putting a gate in there would be difficult.”
“It isn’t like we have anywhere else to look Commander,” Berg replied wearily
“Contact!” the sensor rating warned.
Berg, too keyed up to go below, but too tired to stay awake, had been dozing in her chair and woke with a snort.
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 42
