“It’s definitely three contacts, sir.” Said the sensor operator. “Two are Nameless escorts, third doesn’t match any known profile.”
Jeff had kind of expected a eureka moment when suddenly they were close enough to see all. Instead it was a slow - boring to watch - process where the quality of the information they were getting gradually improved.
“Ship?” Driscoll asked. The Lieutenant had unbelted himself from his seat and been looking over the shoulder of the senior sensor operator for about the last hour.
“I don’t think so, sir.” The operator replied. “We’re getting pretty clear solar reflections from the escorts. The third one is giving very little reflection and no sign of engine emissions.”
“Anything else?”
“They’re just beyond the Blue Line, sir. So they can presumably Jump Out at any time.”
“What about cameras. Are we close enough for the cameras?”
“We’re in the planet’s shadow, so we’re still not getting much, sir. Estimate another twenty minutes before we get anything useful.”
“New contacts!” Called out one of the other sensor operators. “Three contacts baring two, six, three dash zero, zero, one.” Driscoll spun around at the call. “Range four light seconds, they’re climbing away from planet.”
“What’s their track?” Driscoll snapped.
“Their current track will see them rendezvous with the first three in about an hour.”
Jeff continued to watch the fleet personnel at work, trying to describe the mood and the feel of the moment to his future audience. When he looked down the page though, it was covered with words like slow, steady, and careful. This was probably another bit that would need either brushed over or sexed up.
It was only as they reached the point of their closest approach that finally the external cameras could get a decent picture. There were two escorts, floating motionless in space. Jeff had already seen pictures of Nameless ships just like these, fleet released publicity shots, including some exciting images of ones coming apart under fire. This was his first time though seeing humanities enemy in the flesh, so to speak. All of the pictures were in greyscale, the computer apparently wasn’t programmed to add colour. Whichever crewman was controlling the camera however seemed to be more interested in the third object. Even Jeff could see that this was something new, he cast his camera a brief longing look, before starting to draw what he could see. Who’d have ever though those school art classes would prove useful?
It seemed to be an open lattice structure, shaped like a ring, with a boxy bit on top. There seemed to be pointy bits on the inner surface of the ring pointing inwards. If he didn’t get hold of a picture he’d have to get Driscoll to give a proper military description; ‘pointy bits’ lacked a certain something.
“The computer is estimating the diameter of the object to be about three hundred metres, not a perfect ring though, it’s wider than it’s tall.” Reported Headey.
“What do you think it is?” Jeff said to Driscoll quietly.
“Don’t know.” The Lieutenant replied distractedly. “Might be the basic framing of a space station, no sign of work in progress though. Odd.”
“Sir,” The helmsman called out, “we’ve reached the point of our closest approach, range is starting to open again.”
“Are we going to come around again, take another look?” Jeff asked.
“No.” Driscoll said continuing to stare at the display, before turning and pushing himself towards his seat. “No,” he repeated more decisively, “We’ve got as much as we’re going to get here. we’ll now make a quiet exit. we’ll head out well beyond the Red Line and make our jump out tomorrow evening. Headquarters might choose to send another scout to take a second look at whatever that framework is, or they might send a cruiser squadron to flatten it.”
“So that’s the excitement done?” Jeff replied. It was almost a disappointment, almost.
“If we’re smart. Only other thing is those three approaching ships, we’ll see what they’re up to before we get out of range. That’s about thirty minutes away.”
“Do you mind if I go below to write up my notes and come back for that?”
“Go right ahead, I’ll call you.”
Driscoll was as good as his word; Jeff had managed to use the time productively, the ending was still pretty weak though, so hopefully the approaching ships would give him some material. The three starships were already visible on the visual display when he came back to the Bridge. They looked to be another two Nameless escorts plus a ship that was something different.
“How come we can see these ones?” He asked.
“Their engines are firing.” Driscoll replied. “That gives the cameras enough light to work with. The third one looks to be a hydrogen skimmer, probably harvesting fuel from the atmosphere of the planet. Although why are their engines still firing?” The last part Driscoll was clearly asking himself.
“They’re decelerating, sir, but unless they break hard in the next few minutes, they’re going to over shoot or collide with the framework.” Headey said.
“Weird.” Driscoll muttered.
“Sir,” said one of the other operators, “I’m getting some new readings from the framework.”
“What kind?”
“Magnetic anomalies plus some radiation. Computer doesn’t have any idea what it is.”
“Record it, maybe Headquarters will have a better idea.”
Silence returned to the bridge. Jeff was starting to consider going back to his note writing when suddenly Headey let out a gasp of surprise. On the visual display the three approaching ships were now brightly lit up. The picture swiftly panned to the left, onto the empty framework. Except it wasn’t empty anymore. The space inside the ring was filled with a bright blue and white light which formed into a funnel.”
“What in the name of god!” Driscoll muttered. “Headey, any ideas?”
“Energy field of some description, sir.”
“I figured that bit out myself!” Driscoll practically snarled back at him.
Jeff’s pencil was working madly, this was just the big ending his newscast would need, previously unseen alien tech; this was gold. Absolute gold. Then it got better. The harvester and its escort passed through the ring and the energy field; one by one they faded out and vanished.
“Well.” Driscoll commented suddenly calm, with a slight smile, “Well, well. It’s some kind of fixed jump gate system.
“Didn’t think that was possible, sir.” Headey replied. “You need to have a Jump Drive to keep the conduit open.
“Their Jump Drives must be more different than we thought.” Driscoll replied with a shake of his head. “That’s going to blow holes in a few theories.”
“Skipper! That thing emitted a burst of protons as each ship went through; we’re getting reflections off our hull!” Headey suddenly exclaimed.
Jeff felt the mood on the bridge shift abruptly, from one of wonder to… not quite anxiety but something close.
“Oh hell.” Driscoll replied as he pushed himself back into his seat, “Bridge, Engineering, prepare to spin up the reactor. Helm, prepare to lay in direct course for the Red Line.”
“What! What!” Jeff blurted out.
“If we’ve had bounce back, they might have spotted us and if they have then we might be screwed.” Driscoll replied tightly, his eyes locked on the main display. “Sensors keep a sharp eye on those ships.”
“Heading change! One of the escorts has just lit off it drive! They’ve seen us!” Headey shouted.
“Bridge, Engineering. Full power, now! Helm, go full burn. Headey cut loose the array. Radar, go active. Visors down gentlemen.” Driscoll unleashed a stream of orders.
As soon as he heard the magic words Jeff grabbed for his camera.
Built into the towed arrays winch were pair explosive shaped charges, these were now pressed up against the cable and fired with a sharp crack. As the cable parted, on the other end, the array r
eacted to the loss of contact with K7’s computer by self destructing. A security procedure, in this case probably not necessary since a second or two later the main engine fired and hosed the fragments with plasma.
On the bridge Jeff heard the sharp crack and the growing rumble. He recognised the rumble of the engines, the crack of the explosives might have unnerved him but now he had his camera, he was too busy to pay much attention to that kind of thing. Around the bridge there was a series of sharp clicks as the crew closed the visors of their survival suits. Jeff panned his camera across the bridge.
“We have just observed previously unknown alien technology in operation.” He told his future audience breathlessly. “But a side effect of this has seen our position compromised.” Compromised, that was a good military word, made people feel included. “At this point discretion is the better part of valour and Lieutenant Driscoll must use his ship’s great speed to escape.”
With the engine firing there was a growing gravity effect and abruptly Jeff found his boot magnets loosing traction as he slid backwards. The bridge bulkhead brought him to a halt with a bump.
“Contact separation, we have incoming!” Headey called out.
“Bridge, Engineering, lose the engine safeties, I want full power.” Driscoll ordered. In response the roar of the engines grew louder and Jeff found himself being pushed uncomfortably hard into the bulkhead. On the main radar display he could see four small contacts approaching them; chasing directly after K7, they were only slowly overhauling. Driscoll watched the display intently, then suddenly barked out.
“Countermeasures, full spread! Helm, right, right, rightrightrightRIGHTRIGHT!”
Jeff clung to a handle with one hand and his camera with the other as the ship corkscrewed madly. The courier’s hull keened and groaned at the mistreatment. Through the forward view port he caught a brief glimpse of a missile burn past them.
“We just dodged the four missiles the Nameless have fired at us!” He exclaimed for the camera. He spoke too soon.
It wasn’t a direct hit, K7 wouldn’t have survived that, one missile did however burst far too close. It sent out a spray of shrapnel, some of which hit the courier. The thin hull plating provided no real resistance as the missile fragments went clean through. On the bridge there were a pair of bangs as a thumb sized hole appeared in the left wall of the bridge, with a matching one on the right. Air started to rush noisily out. When his ears popped Jeff belatedly remembered to close the visor of his survival suit.
This bit Jeff remembered from his basic training. Snatching up a can of sealant, he pushed himself over to the hole and sprayed it in. The hole sealed up with a noisy gurgle.
“Are they chasing us?” Asked Driscoll.
“One is holding position, sir, the other is moving towards the gate. Must be to raise the alarm.”
“No. No, it can do that with a transmission. It’s going to use the gate to jump out and its own drive to jump back in ahead of us. Watch for its distortion pattern.” Driscoll snapped back.
All three of the sensor operators watched their displays intently. Ten tense minutes later the Nameless ship passed through the gateway and disappeared.
“Got it!” Headey shouted back. “Distortion pattern baring zero, zero, two dash zero, zero, zero.”
“Helm, take us right at him.” Driscoll called.
“Sir?” There was alarm in the helmsman’s voice.
“That’s an order! Cut engine and radar, countermeasures to standby.”
When the engine cut out microgravity suddenly returned and Jeff was forced to abruptly steady himself again. Ahead the visual distortion was now so close Jeff could see it with his naked eye. The distortion got steadily more violent as the Nameless ship forced its way back into real space, ghost like at first it became rapidly more solid.
“Counter measures, full spread, pop the decoys.” Driscoll ordered.
From within recesses in the hull four cylinders the size of a diver’s air tank launched. Short lived but powerful rockets pushed them away from K7. Ten kilometres clear of the courier the cylinders activated. A tiny amount of air was all that was needed to instantly inflate a large foil balloon, one carefully tailored to match both the shape, size and radar profile of a K Class. Instead of the single fleeing ship it expected, the newly arrived Nameless ship found itself confronted by five separate contacts.
Jeff desperately wanted to explain what was happening, but his heart seemed to have jumped into his mouth and he found himself mumbling incoherently.
The escort spat missiles, ripping through two of the decoys, it still had two more missiles in their silos but opportunity had gone. K7 flashed beneath the Nameless ship, her engines firing once again, leaving the alien floundering.
“Wherever it went, sir, it didn’t pick up much velocity.” Headey reported, “It’s pretty much at rest relative to the planet: they’re never going to catch us.”
It took another ten minutes to prove it but Headey was right. K7 was now travelling at vastly greater velocity than the Nameless ships. Their missiles had a slight acceleration advantage over the courier, but chasing directly up K7’s wake, they exhausted their fuel and fell away long before they could reach her.
Another ninety minutes at full power and K7 crossed the Red Line and disappeared into the safety of Jump Space.
Driscoll let out a sigh of relief as he released the catch on his restraint harness and opened his helmet visor.
“Bridge, Engineering, have you got a damage report?”
“Port side of the hull between frames B and D has more perforations than a good quality teabag. We’ve popped several welds and the number two fuel tank is riddled.” Came the reply across the intercom. “We haven’t lost anything we can’t manage without though.”
“Thank you Engineering. We did good work today, we’re now a little less ignorant about the enemy.”
Jeff pushed back up his helmet visor. “And what’s more,” he added patting his camera fondly, “we’ve got one hell of a newscast here.”
The Nameless War Page 40
