The profile of that overlapping mess of ships had changed, although only because one of them had moved slightly. It wasn’t turning to face them or taking any hostile action, but her response had been that of a fighter pilot. It was too late now. They were committed. From astern came a thump and in Damage Control the main lights flickered on.
“Engineering, Damage Control, reactor online! Generators One and Two spinning up!”
Alanna didn’t respond as she pulled herself over to the emergency helm station. The emergency computer had powered up the control consoles but the main computer and all the remaining systems were still booting. They were still at least twenty seconds from being able to do anything!
“Bridge to all guns, fire when you are able!” she ordered as she gripped the helm’s still useless manual controls.
The ship’s power board showed the generators had spun up. Electricity flowed to the flak guns and Alanna felt the deck tremble. On the visual display she saw first one, then another flak round burst among the closely grouped Nameless ships. Then the roll took the gun out of arc.
“Shit!” Alanna shouted as she uselessly rattled the control yoke. With the engines not yet online, she still couldn’t arrest Deimos’s roll.
The radar did come back though and on it she could see the alien formation beginning to shift. Another gun came into arc and opened fire, throwing flak rounds indiscriminately at their packed ships. Then the engine display on her console lit up and Alanna rammed the throttle to full. Warning alarms buzzed as several control surfaces shattered under the temperature shock as the engines went to full power. She struggled with controls far more sluggish than anything she was used to.
“Captain! The jump drive is responding, it’s getting power!” shouted the rating at navigation.
“Calculate a jump out of the system!” Alanna shouted back as she wrestled Deimos onto a facing to bring two of their guns to bear and give her a visual. On the screen the Nameless reappeared. The aliens were scattering as flak round burst among them. With the guns on local control, the fire was utterly indiscriminate. In the centre of their formation, Alanna got the briefest glimpse of something large, before flak rounds worked along its length and it disappeared in a fiery flash.
“What the hell was that?” exclaimed the rating at Sensors.
“Calculations complete, Jump Drive spinning up!”
Deimos accelerated away. Such was the chaos she had wrought that not a single vengeful missile pursued before she jumped away.
___________________________
“Sir? Sir?”
Sheehan’s voice woke Lewis from the doze he’d slipped into, his fingers tingled as he lifted his chin up and blood flow was restored.
“What is it, Captain?” he croaked.
Sheehan handed him a computer pad but his tired eyes just couldn’t focus. Letters seemed to dance back and forth. Christ, I can’t read any more, he thought before handing it back.
“Just give me the highlights,” he said.
“One of the reconnaissance ships you sent out of system has reported in, Sir. They came through the next nearest system. Yesterday they observed one hundred and twenty-three Nameless ships arriving, mostly lighter types but none of them show damage, so we have to assume they are the ships from Landfall,” Sheehan grimly summarised.
They’d never got a clear estimate of the number of Nameless ships in theatre, but one hundred and twenty-three! Even if they were mostly escorts, it would still double the forces available to them, especially if they were arriving with full fuel bunkers and missile magazines. The Nameless had done it again – reacted with decisiveness that under other circumstances would be something to be admired. They’d realised that this was the last battle that would matter and sacrificed everything else to win it.
“What do you want to do, sir?” Sheehan asked quietly.
“Inform our divisional commanders. Instruct them to stand ready. I expect the Nameless assault will begin within hours.”
When Sheehan had gone, Lewis opened his desk draw and took out a packet of tablets. The doctors had been handing out wake up pills since the end of the second week. He’d always loathed such things. No matter what the bloody doctors and pharmacists promised, chemicals always came with a price. The main alarm started to sound. Lewis ripped open the packet, swallowed two and pulled on his survival suit helmet.
Nameless ships were detonating before they even managed to complete their jump in. There were fifty of them formed in a half circle around the front of the Home Fleet, none of them more than thirty thousand kilometres from the human ships. A dozen were little more than drifting debris inside thirty seconds. Mostly escorts and scouts, the survivors went full burn as they made it back into real space. Missiles began to fly and further back, at the edge of plasma cannon range, Nameless carriers arrived and began to launch. Space around the Home Fleet erupted as every gun on every ship opened up. This time however, none of the alien ships pulled away. As they launched, scouts, escorts, cruisers and even capital ships charged in, straight into the Home Fleet’s withering fire.
On Warspite’s bridge, Lewis felt the great ship shudder as a missile found its way through and slammed into her belt armour. The Nameless were dying in droves but even as they did, they remained lethal. Burning, exploding wrecks stayed on their ballistic courses into and through the Home Fleet’s formation, which disintegrated as ships scrambled out of the path of these fiery battering rams. Lewis winced as he saw the course of one scout intersect with that of the destroyer Knight and both disappeared from the scope.
“Coms, fleet course change. Five degrees to port and bows down forty degrees. Acceleration, fleet’s best,” he ordered.
On the holo the cruisers Churchill, Thor and the battleship Yavuz Sultan Selim began showing damage codes. As Nameless ships or their wrecks came charging through the formation, individual ships found themselves isolated. The barrage ship Drummer was slow to react to the heading change as three Nameless ships zeroed in on her. Two were shredded as they attempted to charge straight through her barrage but the third swerved round the wall of explosions. Drummer sluggishly attempted to dodge, even as her small point defence battery savaged at the Nameless ship. It wasn’t enough and the two disappeared in a flash as the alien craft slammed in and their fusion reactors breached.
On Warspite, an alarm sounded as the computer registered a pair of escorts powering down towards them on a collision course from above, behind several cap ship missiles on final approach. Lewis could only watch, helpless to make any useful contribution, while the battleship’s crew fought to save their ship. Warspite rolled to reveal her broadside and place her heaviest armour between the approaching danger and her vitals. Half the ship’s original heavy calibre railguns had been exchanged for flak guns, which now poured fire at the approaching missiles, while their heavier counterparts spat fire at the charging escorts.
The first railgun round performed exactly as designed. Striking the escort square on, it ploughed down the length of the alien ship, coring it. Even as the Nameless detonated, Warspite’s guns were already shifting to the second ship, which was attempting to both stay on its suicide run and dodge. Railguns and plasma cannon lashed at it. One railgun round grazed it, a glancing hit that was enough to tear the side off the fragile little ship. Disintegrating as it tumbled, the escort couldn’t match Warspite’s last evasive manoeuvre. But the sacrifice of the escorts allowed two of the cap ship missiles through. As he was thrown against his restraints, the last thing Lewis saw before the main holo blinked out were serried ranks of Nameless ships dropping into real space ready to fire through the gaps their colleagues had torn out of the Home Fleet.
___________________________
“Talk to me Damage Control,” Captain Hicks shouted, “how bad is it?”
Jeff was only half aware of the conversation that was going on across the command channel. He was too busy trying to pin down a sensor rating, as a corpsman fought to save her. Without gravi
ty all three of them kept floating off the deck and as the cruiser manoeuvred they were thrown about.
“Please, please, please,” she begged.
Jeff could see blood squirting out of the wound in her stomach. With the bridge decompressed, the blood crystallised and froze within seconds. As Jeff physically struggled with her, he tried to erase from his memory the... sensation of missile fragments blowing through the bulkhead and cutting across the bridge faster than the eye could see or the mind comprehend.
“For fuck’s sake, hold the bitch down!” the corpsman cursed as he tried to line up his sealant gun.
Jeff pushed one leg under the console now covered in the woman’s blood, then twisted to place his forearm across her chest and forced her back to the deck. The corpsman was still swearing as he sealed the wound.
“Up, got to reach her back.”
Jeff released his hold long enough for the corpsman to flip the woman over, then clamped her back down. It only took the man a couple of seconds but in such an awkward position that was enough to set his back muscles screaming.
“Okay, got it. Let’s go!”
“I’m not crew. I’m a journalist. I’ve got to stay here.”
All of those words sprung to mind. He said none of them. Inside her helmet the woman’s head lolled and her eyes rolled back. The monitor connected to her suit flashed red.
“Got it,” Jeff replied.
Making their way out of the back of the bridge, Jeff reflected he’d never realised how hard it was to carry something in zero G. Sure their patient was also weightless but he couldn’t get his legs underneath. With one hand to hold her and the other trying to pull him forward, that left him at least a hand short. As the two of them struggled down the passageway a pair of Damage Control ratings, carrying lengths of cabling, shot past them like missiles. The climb down into the centrifuge was even worse as their load gained weight. By the time he reached the bottom of the ladder, Jeff’s arm was nearly pulled out of its socket. The corpsman took her over his shoulder though and headed for sickbay at something close to a run, while Jeff tottered after him.
Passing through the sickbay airlock, Jeff was confronted by something he’d never before seen in the otherwise sterile world of space. Blood was splashed on the bulkheads and even though his survival suit was still sealed, he could have sworn he could smell it. As they came in, the Surgeon and one of his orderlies were pulling a sheet-covered body off the bed. On one side of the sickbay three more bodies lay neatly stacked. Seeing the three of them arrive, the Surgeon hurried over. Before the battle he’d spoken to and interviewed the man. He’d been well spoken, even witty. Jeff had marked it as one for transmission but now the man’s eyes were dead.
“What have we got?” he snapped.
“High velocity abdominal penetration, through and through, major blood loss, probably spinal damage,” the corpsman grunted as he gently laid her down on an empty bed.
As the man spoke the surgeon was already pulling a small x-ray machine into position.
“Cut her out of her suit,” he ordered before frowning at what he saw. He glanced around the sickbay. “She’s borderline. Alright, we’ll have to operate, but if anyone else comes in, we’ll have to abandon her.”
Jeff felt sick as he realised what the Surgeon had said. It was a triage decision – if more casualties arrived, then the efforts to save the sensor rating would just simply stop.
“Are you hurt?”
“Hmm?” Jeff said when he realised he was being spoken to.
“Are you hurt!” the Surgeon demanded.
“No, no!”
Looking down at himself he realised for the first time that the chest of his suit was streaked crimson.”
“Then get out of here,” the Surgeon snapped as he pulled on surgical gloves, “I don’t need some fucking media vulture in the way!”
Jeff made his way back to the bridge, desperately hoping that at the very least he wouldn’t see another casualty en route to sickbay. By the time he’d got there order was restored, with another rating occupying the seat with a hole in its back. On the holo he couldn’t see any red blips of Nameless ships in among the humans’ green. But there were a lot less green than there had been. Then in the distance, off to starboard, more red blips began to appear. The Battle Fleet ships on that flank continued to fire, but for the moment, Freyia seemed to be on the disengaged side of the battle.
“Any instructions from the Flagship?” Captain Hicks demanded.
“Negative sir, nothing.”
“Well…” Hicks started to say.
“No sir, we are getting absolutely nothing. No communications, no damage codes, we’re not even getting a friend or foe response.”
“Sensors, what’s Warspite’s status?”
“I see a major plasma leak from her engines but she’s still underway and firing.”
“Looks like Warspite’s lost her coms,” Hicks said, looking troubled. “Who’s next in chain of command?”
“Admiral Sekhar, on board the Fortitude, sir. We’re being instructed to shift formation and fill in the gaps.”
“What have we still got in terms of good anti-missile ships?”
“Right now, sir, we have the Yavuz Sultan Selim, the Fortitude and the Io. I can’t see any of the barrage ships – I think we’ve lost the last of them.”
“Bridge, Coms. Orders from Fortitude, Captain. Fleet is to turn ninety degrees to port and make best fleet speed.”
“Understood. Helm, adjust heading.”
On the holo Jeff could see that the turn placed the newly arrived Nameless astern. They were launching the first of their missiles but even Jeff could see that their overtake velocity was slow.
“With the barrage ships gone, fleet speed has actually gone up a bit,” someone said and Hicks nodded.
“Looks like Sekhar is in command now,” Hicks said. “I wonder what he’ll do. The Worms will probably jump some of their sections out onto our flanks in…”
“Bridge, Coms. Captain, we’re receiving a transmission from Warspite, its’ low powered... I think it’s a suit radio.” The communication officer looked up from her console with an expression of surprise. “Captain, it’s an any ships request for a pick up. Admiral Lewis is transferring off!”
“Bridge, Sensors. We have ships jumping in, bearing zero, seven, six, dash, one, six, eight – range, one fifty thousand kilometres. I count thirty of them.”
Jeff could barely keep pace as he swung his camera back and forth towards the different voices. The Captain though, seemed to be calmly keeping ahead of developments. He turned back to the front of his bridge.
“Looks like we’ve got the best position for a pick up. Helm, break formation and put us on intercept for Warspite. Coms, advise Fortitude we are making for Warspite. Then get back onto whoever that is and tell them we’ll come down the port side and that we’ll get only one try. Get someone outside and on the dorsal wing!”
Hicks turned and caught sight of Jeff.
“They don’t cover this shit in training,” he said with a wild grin.
___________________________
“Main coms is down, as is the back up,” Captain Holfe said, his expression bleak as Lewis pulled himself through the hatch into the main bridge. “We’ve lost everything – radio hook up to the main grid, the coms lasers, even a good chunk of internal communications.”
When Warspite’s flag bridge had lost power, Lewis immediately abandoned it. Behind the Captain, Lewis could see that the Damage Control display and multiple sections were flashing red. The bridge holo was still online but had been stripped of almost all detail. There were greens and reds for friends and foes but nothing to indicate which ship was which.
“The fleet?”
“I can barely tell what the hell is going on out there, sir. All I can do is follow the fleet’s movements.”
“Captain, sir,” a junior officer shot onto the bridge. “Sir, the first officer reports main communications took a
direct hit. Everyone is dead and there’s heavy damage to backup coms. It will be at least an hour before we can establish even basic coms systems.”
“We are deaf and dumb,” Holfe said grimly, before turning back to Lewis.
On the holo, the fleet re-orientated as its sub-commanders realised the flagship had dropped out of grid. With no ability to communicate, Lewis no longer held a place in the chain of command. In fact, the rest of the fleet now had to assume he was dead. That put Sekhar in command.
What to do now? As Lewis studied the holo, the fleet turned and accelerated away from the newly arrived Nameless. The aliens should have done as their colleagues and jumped in closer to force immediate contact. But after days of savage losses, perhaps some Worm had finally succumbed to the siren call of self-preservation and a desire to finish the job without further loss. Turning away was giving the Home Fleet time to re-establish formation but would Sekhar use that time to jump away? The order might already have been given. He would only know when ships began to disappear.
“Sir,” Holfe replied, “my ship can move and she can fight, but she cannot serve as a command vessel. We have to get you off this ship.”
“Have we got a shuttle?” Lewis asked.
“No,” said the junior officer still awaiting orders. “We’ve had them all checked and even the ones that haven’t been obliterated are beyond use.”
“We need a shuttle to come to us,” Holfe said. “But we haven’t the coms to communicate with anyone.”
“Put someone in an airlock and use their suit radio,” Sheehan said.
“If that doesn’t work, get someone to stick out their thumb,” Lewis replied with grim humour. “Sheehan, you’ve just volunteered. Get out there.”
As Sheehan dashed away, Lewis turned back to the holo. He could see small blips racing into and through the fleet’s formation. Some probably missiles, others fighters, but whether they were friendly or hostile was impossible to tell.
Minutes crawled by and all Lewis could do was clench his fists and follow a battle he had no ability to influence. Was this the moment when everything slipped away?
The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) Page 47
