"Oh God. What the hell is Vinc doing?" Willis asked out loud. "Coms, get on to Hurricane, tell them to break off their attack. Tell him to stop being a hero!"
"Still no…"
"GOD DAMN IT!"
The visual display blinked out. Willis opened her mouth to shout just as the holo came back on this time with the welcome blips and icons of the radar display.
"We have the compu…"
"Coms order Hurricane to break off her attack!" She shouted it across the bridge.
"Too late!"
The two radar blips merged.
The Nameless ship was significantly out accelerating Hurricane, with her single labouring engine. But the alien had shed velocity after over shooting Hood and this had given Hurricane the chance to close on them. Even a second or two more and the alien would have started to pull away, but instead, with an over-take velocity of only seventy kilometres per hour, Hurricane grazed the alien ship.
Steel plates ripped and twisted like tin foil as the lower surface of Hurricane’s hull opened up like a tin can as far back as the engines. The entire ventral turret was ripped clean out of its barbette and sent tumbling away. What little atmosphere remained in the cruiser gushed out of her ruined hull.
For the Nameless it was worse.
For all her terrible damage, Hurricane was still armour plated, whereas the Nameless was unprotected. The entire upper surface of its hull was shorn away. The two ships tumbled away from one another trailing wreckage.
"Coms?" Willis whispered.
"Checking all frequencies Ma’am." He shook his head. "I’m sorry Ma’am I’m getting nothing."
As he spoke Hurricane snapped in two just forward of the conning tower.
"Skipper."
"Skipper!"
Willis looked round.
"Two more enemy ships have gone full burn. Profile consistent with a ramming attack."
The Nameless were going to keep coming until they succeeded.
___________________________
"I’m not sure which ship, sir, but one of them definitely rammed an enemy vessel after the alien tried to ram its compatriot. Err… several more have just started to make a run at the survivor." Sheehan said.
Lewis grunted a reply.
On the face of it, the Home Fleet was doing well. The Nameless fleet had lost well over half their number. The space behind them, was littered with the drifting wrecks of gutted starships. The thinness of the enemy counter fire indicated that their magazines were near empty. Yet Lewis could take no satisfaction in the situation. The cruisers Isis, Vàli, Amazon, Tempest, Whirlwind and now either Hood or Hurricane were all gone. As were the destroyers Shark, Black Widow, Cuckoo and Oak. The cruiser Nile was staggering along astern of Warspite, her armament reduced to a single point defence gun, which blazed away defiantly at anything that came close. She wasn’t the only ship so reduced. Only approximately one third of his ships were fully combat worthy. The rest were a mixture of the battered, the lame and the gutted. Reducing power to allow the cripples to hold formation had slowed the fleets acceleration to a crawl and the Nameless were now overhauling them.
The ramming attack on the fleet’s rearguard was probably just a foretaste of what the rest of the fleet would experience. The Nameless would soon turn to cross the Home Fleet’s T and then come at them head on. They would likely be wiped out but they would take a hell of a lot of human ships with them. The Home Fleet would be finished as a fighting force.
"Admiral we’re picking up an FTL transmission. It isn’t one of ours." Captain Sheehan said. "Probably their main fleet reporting that they are jumping out for Earth."
"Yes." Lewis replied heavily
"I wonder whether they’ll break off?"
"It makes little difference. They’ll reach Earth hours ahead of us." Lewis said with despair clear in his voice.
Lewis continued to morosely watch the battle on the holo.
"That’s strange." The bemusement in Sheehan’s voice roused Lewis out of his hopelessness. The admiral gave his staff captain a curious look.
"What is it."
"There seems to be quite a conversation going on, sir. There have been three clear transmissions from the direction of the second fleet and this lot has sent three separate replies."
Lewis pondered what Sheehan had told him. Strange but true. The middle of a battle wasn’t best place for a discussion even if their FTL transmitters were better.
"Sir, look!" The Staff Captain was pointing at the holo. "They’re turning away, all of them!"
"Sensors, Flag. Passive sensors are registering power build up in the majority of enemy ships." The Senior sensor officer reported across the intercom.
"Sensors, are they powering up jump drives?" Lewis demanded.
"This is an unknown, sir. It could be, but the analysis system isn’t sure."
"Sir, I think they’re bugging out!" Sheehan exclaimed. "Should I order a pursuit?"
Lewis didn’t answer immediately. The human ships were still firing; the aliens were still well inside the range of the guns and the Battlefleet ships continued pound them. The alien fleet had been gutted, with more losses than survivors; the ones that were still alive though, were in better condition than the surviving human ships. A glance at one of the tactical readouts, told Lewis what he already suspected; their fleet speed, the max acceleration at which the Home Fleet could hold together, was a lot lower than the rate at which the Nameless were accelerating away.
"No. We aren’t pursuing, Tim." He said heavily.
"Sir-" Sheehan started to object.
"It could be a ruse, to get us to string out. Besides this is only a decoy force. They’ve done their job; they’ve succeeded in wasting hours."
"What… what are your orders, sir." The brief elation in Sheehan’s voice was gone.
"Order all ships to continue firing but start powering up their jump drives. Are they still jamming the radio bands?"
"Not any more, sir, they’ve lost too many ships to blanket all the bands."
"Send a transmission to the tug ships to jump to our position. Any ships with combat capability we’ll tow back, cripples will have to be scuttled. We have to pray that somehow planetary defence manages to hold off their second fleet." The Admiral’s voice was tired and without hope. The hours of worry, the moments of elation and knowledge of just how profoundly he had failed, he had reached his limit. He felt mentally and physically exhausted. He’d risked everything in a single throw, based on bad information and fallen into a colossal trap. He’d hurt the Nameless badly, no doubt of this, but he’s also delivered Earth to its enemies. Possibly the greatest military failure in history and he’d made it. It would take at least a day to get even his lightly damaged ships to make it back to Earth. There was no possibility that they would return in time.
Lewis watched the holo morosely, his normally straight shoulders slumped. The fighting was still going on but there was nothing more he could do. The radar was detecting small contacts appearing from damaged Nameless ships and travelling to undamaged vessels. Presumably crews abandoning ships that no longer had jump capability.
"Sir." Sheehan said in a quiet voice. "Enemy ships are starting to jump out."
"I see it Tim."
"Flag, Communications. We’re receiving a radio transmission from outside the Home Fleet."
"What ship?"
"ID is showing it as coming from one of the couriers sent to support Dauntless."
"Probably still trying to tell us there’s a second fleet." Lewis replied wearily.
"Err… I don’t think so, sir." Replied the coms officer from the other end of connection. "It seems to be a data stream of current sensor readings. There’s also a sensor recording file. The attached text file says its eighteen minutes old plus transmission time."
"Put up the current readings."
The display of the battleground around Warspite disappeared, to be replaced by a mass of new signals. The courier’s sensor display lacke
d the definition of warship’s analysis package, offering not much more than a collection of blips. But Lewis immediately saw a pattern in the dots.
There was a reasonably organised outer sphere that formed a screen. The contrast with inner formation was startling. There was no formation or order, only chaos. Some ships were tagged as seriously damaged, other ships were standing off to offer assistance. It looked like a fleet that had already fought a battle, and come off second best.
"What in hells name has happened here?" Lewis whispered in wonder. "Coms, did you say there was a second data stream?"
"Yes, sir, shall I put it up?"
"Yes."
"It’s a compressed file being repeatedly transmitted, sir, putting it up now."
Once again it was the second Nameless fleet on the holo. This time however both the inner and outer formations were in good order, all calm and orderly. Within the inner formation there was a cluster of ships tagged as a tankers. Then abruptly another blip appeared, between the inner and outer formation, a label flashed up identifying the new contact as Dauntless.
"Christ, the woman’s mad." Lewis muttered to himself.
In disbelief, he watched Dauntless’s kamikaze charge expecting to see the carrier destroyed at any moment. Then suddenly Nameless ships started exploding.
"What the hell?"
The courier’s data wasn’t telling him why, but suddenly Nameless were dying in droves. Two of the assumed tankers disappeared. Within minutes the fleet was reduced to a confused mob.
The Flag Bridge of Warspite had gone silent as every man and woman watched the recording. Dauntless’s signal disappeared as she jumped out. Even after the carriers departure, aliens kept dying.
"What in the name of god did they do?" Sheehan murmured.
"I don’t know, but I look forward to asking Vice Admiral Brian." Lewis replied quietly. "I think she might have done it Tim. I think she’s stalled their advance. At the very least she’s given us the chance to get back to Earth in time. Get the fleet into cruising formation. We’ve done what we needed to do here. We’re going home."
Chapter Fifteen
The Lost
Dauntless and Hammerhead drifted, their engines powered down, most of their radiators closed, all radar, communications, and running lights off. On one side of the carrier, the fighter bays had been reduced to a jumble of twisted metal, the other side half the bay doors were gone, leaving dark gaping voids.
They’d decelerated to a halt shortly after re-entering realspace, to lick their wounds and wait for the fighters to reach them. Even from the other side of the system, they’d been able to ‘hear’ the sounds of the Home Fleet’s battle; radio chatter, distant radar emissions and the faint but unmistakable emissions of fusion reactor explosions.
Soon they would be jumping away again, to the rendezvous with the Samuel Clemens. From there, they would start the journey back to Earth.
Brian sat in her command chair, staring moodily into the middle distance. O’Malley was watching his commander with open concern. They had waited nearly three hours for the fighters to reach them. The last radar reading taken before they jumped out, had shown four fighters still alive. But only two had made it back to Dauntless. Of twelve fighter crews that arrived in Alpha Centauri less than two days ago for a training mission, only one crew of trainees and one of instructors were now alive. Added to this already sobering statistic, were the losses suffered on the ships. Seventeen of Dauntless’s crew were now in a hastily prepared morgue, another thirteen were wounded in sickbay. Finally there were the fifty three officers and crew of the Piranha, all gone.
Brian had seen action before. She’d fought in most of the major battles of the Contact War. She’d seen people, friends, die, sometimes horribly. Yet this had been different. Back then she’d been a junior officer, one cog in a great machine. This was the first time that she had been the one formulating the battle plan and giving the orders. The one deciding how many lives would represent ‘acceptable’ losses.
"Ma’am, do you want to attend the pilot debriefing?" O’Malley asked, as much to break the silence.
"Mmm?" Brian roused herself.
"The pilot debriefings, do you want to attend?"
"No. No thank you captain. How long until Hammerhead is ready to jump again?" She replied after a pause.
"They need another hour to fully purge their heat sink." O’Malley replied. "The other two fighters might…" He left the words hanging.
"Mmm, I think I’ll leave you to it for a while Norman. Once Hammerhead is ready… we leave." Brian told him before slowly rising from her seat and limping from the bridge.
She wanted sleep, she needed sleep. After more than forty hours on her feet, her bad knee was aching fiercely. Despite this, she didn’t go down to her cabin and the welcome oblivion of her bunk, instead her feet carried her down and out of the centrifuge into the main hull.
The ship was quiet now. Only a skeleton crew were still on duty, the majority were in their bunks. Where she should be if she had any sense. Being in zero g at least took the load off her knee and the pain from it started to ease. She drifted gently down the passageway until she came to a sealed hatch. Above the hatch were two indicator lights, green and red. The red light was on. The chamber beyond, was one of those now open to space.
Eventually she found herself in one of the two hangars that still had an occupant; the Vampire fighter inside was pretty battered looking. There were several long score marks down the side of the starboard engine housing, one of the scratches had cut through the fighters name, changing it from C for Caesar, to C for Ce. Almost all of the paint on the fighters belly was scorched and blistered. Brian pushed herself off the hanger bulkhead and drifted over to it. Reaching out she pulled herself up and into the cockpit. She didn’t buckle in, instead she allowed herself to float gently above the seat. Slowly she drifted into sleep.
___________________________
Alanna stopped just inside the hatchway of the pilot’s barracks. When first they had embarked aboard Dauntless, the mess had been filled to bursting, there had been constant noise of people coming, going, living. Now there was only the crew of Caesar and the silence was crushing. Dhoni plodded past her and sat down heavily on the first bunk. He looked around and shook his head.
They’d both hoped that someone else might have made it; after the debriefing was done, they’d both hung around the operations room waiting for news, putting off this very moment. They waited and waited, then a call came down from the bridge and the operations officer drew thick black lines through the names of the missing fighter on the out board.
The barracks was far from the usual standards of military precision, clothing was scattered across unmade bunks. With the rush to mount the attack, tidying up hadn’t been on anyone’s priority list.
"Do you think we should… you know… clear up their stuff?" She asked hesitantly.
Dhoni looked around slowly.
"Really, I don’t think I want to." He replied quietly.
"I think we have to, D." She replied.
She started to pick up items of clothing and pack them back into storage lockers. As she put away a shirt, her eyes fell upon a photograph on the bulkhead. Dauntless had served as the fleet’s fighter training ship for most of twenty years. Mounted on the bulkheads were group pictures, graduating classes of fighter crews from the last ten years. All of them taken inside this very room. Proud smiling faces displaying their new flight stripes. The thought crossed her mind, this year’s picture was going to be very small; she turned away sicken
___________________________
A red light blinked on and off for several seconds, before the siren in the hangar belatedly started up. Brian jerked awake as the banshee like howl echoed painfully off the hangar’s metal walls. It took a few seconds of looking around in confusion before her memory kicked in.
"Bridge, report!" She shouted into her intercom.
There was no reply, not even static.
Glancing down she cursed as she realised that in her sleep, she’d managed to pull the wire for her intercom ear/throat piece out of its socket. The contact was rammed violently back into place and immediately a signal came across the command channel.
"… iral Brian, contact the bridge! Admiral Brian, contact the bridge!" It was O’Malley’s voice on the other end and he was shouting.
"Brian here. What the hell is going on?"
"Ma’am, they’ve found us!"
She felt her spine turn to ice.
It’s hard to rush in zero g, but once alarms start blaring, instinct cuts in and tells you to move fast and accept the bruises you are about to receive. As Brian dashed back to the bridge, she felt the ship swing round and the engines go full burn. All the while she could feel irreplaceable seconds flowing away. Finally she slammed open the hatch into the bridge.
"Report!"
O’Malley turned towards her. His face was expressionless but in his eyes she could see fear.
"Admiral, a force of eight enemy ships has just jumped in. They’re currently two hundred and ten thousand kilometres directly astern of us." He said in an unnaturally calm voice.
"Strength?"
"Tactical is estimating two cruisers and six escorts."
"Hell."
"They’re already out accelerating us."
Brian stared at the holo display. The two human ships had completed their turns and were now starting to accelerate. They’d been sitting nearly stationary, even if the aliens held their current speed, it would take Dauntless at least twenty minutes just to match it. Which was a moot point for the Nameless weren’t holding speed, they were accelerating and while Hammerhead might have had the pace to match then pull away from them, there was no prospect of Dauntless being able to do the same. The destroyer started to zigzag back and forth across the stern of her lumbering companion.
The Nameless War Page 36
