The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War)

by Edmond Barrett

  SS Lever came in first. As she crossed over the top of the base, her guidance systems locked onto the beacon below. Then at a single electronic command, sixteen drop pods tethered to her flanks fell away. As they burned into the atmosphere, Lever fired her engines and started to climb away. Astern the next ship lined up, while above the Nameless manoeuvred into position.

  ___________________________

  13:55 Hrs Douglas Base time

  Breaker’s Rock continued to peg at them. As Kite String settled into drop formation, Crowe discerned that Breaker’s firing pattern was changing. That first devastating salvo had been indiscriminate, but now they were alternating salvos between the escorts and the transports. Worse, there was obviously some kind of rearming facility at or near the asteroid and some of the Nameless escorts were making use of it. The remaining Nameless ships were positioning themselves to join with the fire from Breaker’s, creating an eruption of flames in the space over Kite String as every gun burst into life. Crowe could feel himself start to sweat. In open space Deimos could at least manoeuvre to some extent to avoid some of the missiles hurtling towards them, but over Landfall, that option was denied to them. Waves of missiles burned down on them, trying to find a way through the wall of plasma bolts, flak rounds and canister shot put out by the escort. But even when their defensive fire struck a missile, its threat wasn’t necessarily removed. Fragments, or even near complete missiles, tumbled down into Landfall’s gravity well into Kite String. Crowe winced as half a missile ploughed into the destroyer Tiger Shark. Even without a warhead the impact was devastating for such a small vessel. Her guns and engines both cut out abruptly as she lost power. Without propulsion she started to orbit away from the convoy.

  Tiger Shark’s squadron mates and a couple of the fighters tried to cover her, angling out from the convoy to buy the wounded destroyer time. But there was only so far they could go and as she slipped beyond their protection, her engines remained inert. Crowe glanced toward communications, but the lieutenant shook her head.

  Two missiles went in and a column of fire poured out of the top of the hull as a reactor scrammed itself. If anyone on or off Tiger Shark had hoped to save her, that was the moment when they must have realised they had to save themselves. Escape pods blasted clear even as more missiles homed in on her.

  Thirty kilometres away Dubious’s systems gave a brief hiccup and then the fighter’s radshield glowed as the radiation from Tiger Shark’s reactor purge washed over them. Moving back into position over the top of the convoy, Alanna shook her head in mute anger. She’d spent Dubious’s last three missiles trying to protect the destroyer, a bad investment of resources. With Buffalo gone there was no way for her to rearm, bar landing on Deimos. She glanced towards the cruiser and even at distance of fifty kilometres could see streams of gunfire coming from her. There was no way Deimos could stop firing long enough to her to land. That had left them relying on their guns, but fighter guns didn’t pack enough of a punch and they were now being more or less ignored by the descending missiles.

  “Okay, this isn’t working.”

  “Skipper?” Schurenhofer asked.

  “We’re going to try something,” Alanna replied as she pulled the stick back and opened the throttle. Astern, her move must have taken Curious by surprise. She’d heard nothing from Malm since Breaker’s. He was still flying but it seemed as if his coms were completely fried.

  The two of them arced up above Kite String, beyond flak gun range. Ahead of them another wave of missiles was hurtling down. With a brief wing waggle to warn Curious, she turned and plunged down ahead of the missiles, guns firing back at them. Cap ship missiles usually crossed through Dubious’s gun range before her little guns could have much effect, but this time first one then a second blew, while Curious claimed a third before they breached the firing zone and pulled away.

  “Good work, Dubious,” the radio suddenly crackled. “All fighters. Follow Dubious’s lead.” Alanna gave Schurenhofer a brief grin before she pulled Dubious back into a climb. Then Commodore Crowe’s voice came back up on the radio. “This is Flagship, to all escort ships. Drop on Endeavour is now complete. All ships are now moving to Douglas Base. Everyone keep it tight and keep up the good work!”

  “Two down, one to go,” Alanna said to Schurenhofer as they commenced their next arc up over the convoy.

  15:03 Hrs Douglas Base time

  The wait in Four C had been agonising but aside from a brief communiqué to ensure they had uplink to the convoy, Eulenburg had kept his silence. The convoy commander was the man on the spot and issuing orders to him wasn’t going to achieve much more than cause confusion. The display was so cluttered he could barely make out what was happening anyway. Certainly the convoy had lost ships and he could only hope that the losses hadn’t included too many of the supplies they so desperately needed.

  “Admiral,” Gillum said quietly from behind him. “We’re getting more reports from the surface. The Nameless are increasing their artillery strikes.”

  Eulenburg glanced at the big display of the surface. There wasn’t much movement from the four circles that indicated Douglas’s point defence grid.

  “They’re firing shrapnel rounds. They’re going high and bursting right over the base,” Gillum continued.

  “Casualties?”

  “Not many. The load moving teams are current in dugouts sir.”

  “But they have to come out to collect the cargo,” Eulenburg said grimly.

  “It’s more than that, sir. The drop pods and troop landers will have to attempt to fly through that.”

  Eulenburg turned and stared at the ground display holo, which showed a succession of disappearing and reappearing lines indicating streams of incoming missiles. The Nameless were learning. In the early days they’d kept their launchers stationary, making them vulnerable to human counter-battery fire. Since then they’d learned however.

  “They’ve obviously received reports of the landings at the other shelters. Damn it these things react fast!”

  “Our batteries are doing their best but we can’t put down enough fire…”

  Eulenburg turned back to Gillum. “Get me the convoy commander on the line.”

  Within a minute the face of a weary looking Commodore appeared on his communications screen.

  “Commodore Crowe of the Deimos. Respectfully Admiral, I’m a bit busy at the moment,” he said.

  “You’re about to get busier still Commodore,” Eulenburg replied. “I need one of your ships to provide ground fire.”

  Crowe looked away before looking back to the communications screen. “Admiral, I’m barely hanging on here as it is. I expect to come under heavy assault within the next few minutes.”

  “We’re already under heavy assault Commodore. The drop zone is under fire and I don’t have enough artillery left to suppress it. Unless I have a ship, any supplies you drop will be flying through a storm of steel.”

  Crowe looked away from the coms screen again, presumably towards his bridge holo. On his own screen Eulenburg could see the convoy formation shifting as ships due drop on Douglas worked their way downwards through the formation.

  “Do you have their firing locations, sir?” Crowe asked.

  “Approximate Commodore, but accurate enough for heavy calibre railgun fire.”

  “Alright sir. I‘m giving you the Amun for twelve minutes. After that I’m taking her back,” Crowe conceded. “Bridge, Coms. Order Amun to assume a low orbit and prepare to accept firing instructions from the surface.”

  “Thank you Commodore. When you have suppressed their artillery, I will launch my atmospheric fighters to escort the drop down.” Crowe acknowledged him with an abrupt nod before disappearing from the screen.

  As he watched, Eulenburg saw the heavy cruiser Amun detach from the convoy’s protective screen, after which contacts abruptly separated from the cruiser and streaked downwards. On Four C’s main ground display, circles of territory, kilometres across, suddenly blank
ed out. Even though Four C was hundreds of metres below the surface and reinforced with concrete, Eulenburg felt the ground beneath his feet shake and saw dust streaming from the ceiling. Gillum glanced upwards.

  “That’s going to cost us,” he muttered.

  On the holo, lines were disappearing as Nameless launchers went silent, likely trying to redeploy, but the cruiser was going to blanket the area around Douglas. As Gillum had said however, that was going to cost them. The shelters were deep but if they were feeling it in Four C, then there were going to be cave-ins. But that was tomorrow’s problem. “Their artillery fire is slackening,” Eulenburg replied. “Launch the fighters. Instruct the ground teams that the drop is commencing.”

  ___________________________

  15:13 Hrs Douglas Base time

  Alice squatted at the bottom of the dugout steps and peered up into the pouring rain. She could only see a small square of sky but it was enough to observe occasional flashes of light as Nameless missiles burst high above the base. The rain was so heavy she could see the refractions of the point defence lasers as they cut across the sky. Every few minutes she had to move her feet to avoid sinking into the ground. Whatever bunch of clowns had built the dugout in the first place had managed to place it in a localised dip in the plateau, then compounded their mistake by failing to put any kind of dam at the top of the steps. There was already nearly ten centimetres of water at the bottom of the dugout. If it weren’t for the regular bursts of shrapnel landing outside she’d have ordered them all out.

  At that thought Alice looked over her shoulder at the squad. It wasn’t hard to pick out the newbies, whose faces were so pale they almost glowed. Every damn time she had her squad trained up, some of them got transferred as replacements to some other unit that had got itself shot up. The fleet seemed to have decided that she was good at keeping people alive, so a good place to assign those fresh up from the shelter. Alice thought that was a big pile of BS. She’d been lucky so far and wasn’t looking forward to the day one of them got seriously wounded or killed. Seeing her look back, Damien waded over and squatted down beside her.

  “I’ve worked drops before,” he said quietly. “My first year here, I had to do social duty,” he continued. “I spent it working on our colony drop site. We had to stay at least three thousand metres from the drop zone until the last of the pods had landed. We’re going to be running around out there as pods land. And they’re going dropping dozens at a time.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to keep our eyes on the sky. Drop pods have right of way.

  Behind her there was a sudden brighter flash.

  “What the hell was that?” Damien asked

  Alice didn’t reply but instead scrambled up the dissolving steps. As she reached the top there was another. A line of fire cut across the sky and terminated below the horizon. North of the base there was a dull glow. Below she heard the field telephone ring, which Damien had answered by the time she got down again.

  “Show time. The first wave of shuttles are on the way down,” he said. She nodded and resumed her place at the door.

  ___________________________

  15:20 Hrs Douglas Base time

  “Contact separation!” called out a sensor operator. “We have incoming!”

  “Recall Amun,” Crowe ordered as he stared at the holo. Although the Nameless had slowed their approach, they’d got a lot closer than he’d expected and the alien commander was obviously smart enough to organise his force to fire as one. Throw enough missiles all at once and that gave them their best chance of saturating the defensive screen. But they were back to single axis firing and as the screen thickened with Douglas’s fighters, the wave of approaching missiles was whittled down. Then Deimos’s guns started to rattle and on the holo the salvo melted away to nothing.

  Suddenly there was a distant bang.

  “What was…” Crowe started to say.

  “Damage Control, Bridge,” crackled Commander Hockley’s voice over the intercom. “Hit to the port wing, minor dam…”

  A second crash cut him off and this one shook Deimos to the core. A scream cut across the command channel.

  “Commander! Commander!… James!” Crowe shouted. “Report. Somebody report!”

  “This is Bosun Benson,” a new voice called across the connection. “The Commander is down! Hull breach! Section D, decks one, two… Jesus Christ Skipper! That went straight through!”

  “Fire Control, Bridge!”

  “Talk to me, guns!” Crowe shouted back.

  “Sir, our fire is having not effect on some of the incoming!”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “I don’t know sir!”

  “Skipper!” called out Lieutenant Colwell. “Long March has been hit!”

  Crowe spun towards the visual. The port side of the big Chinese drop carrier was ripped opened. Even as he watched, she took another hit, resulting in the release of so much atmosphere the carrier lurched out of line, her engines frantically trying to compensate.”

  “Tactical!” Crowe shouted, “What the hell are they firing at us!”

  “Sir, I’m… I’m not sure…”

  No help there, he thought and then roared: “helmsman, take evasive action

  “Bridge, Coms, I have a signal from Dubious.”

  “Understood. Dubious what is it?”

  Dubious’s fixed forward gun fired for a split second and expended eighteen rounds. Alanna winced as the gun’s ammunition read-out on her display dropped into single figures. Dubious’s missiles were long gone, as was the ammunition for the dorsal turret. The fixed gun and ventral turret were down to forty rounds between them, while the fighter’s fuel was barely at twenty-five percent. But that had all become a secondary concern when she saw Deimos take a hit.

  “There’s another one!” Schurenhofer said as she worked her controls. “Roll to port.” In amongst the cap ship and general-purpose missiles they’d seen since the start of the war, there was something new. Before Dubious could bring her turret to bear the missile fired. A projectile erupted from the front while debris blasted out the back like buckshot, leaving the missile housing to tumble away.

  “Deimos, we’re seeing new missiles. They’re firing a kinetic strike projectile using some kind of recoilless rifle system.”

  There was pause and the only sound across the radio was the crackle of the carrier.

  “Understood, Dubious. All fighters. Extend perimeter by five hundred kilometres and priority target the new missile types. Deimos out.”

  “We can extend the perimeter as much as he likes,” muttered Schurenhofer, “but in a minute we’re going to be down to offensive language.”

  ___________________________

  15:29 Hrs Douglas Base time

  “The main drop’s starting,” Alice announced to her squad as she put down the field telephone. “Everyone out.” Damien headed up the steps, but no one else moved. “I said everybody out!” she shouted kicking the nearest member of her squad.

  Outside the rain had managed to get even heavier. A kilometre away, shuttles were scattered across the airfield and she could see troops streaming away from them. There were also a number of columns of thick black smoke from crashed shuttles that had come in too hard. But that wasn’t her problem. Her squad were milling around in little clusters. Damien was trying to get them organised but he was a polite man and still not used to shouting at people.

  “Move it, spread out!” she bellowed as she started shoving her troops. “Spread out and watch the skies! Drop pods have right of way!”

  Minutes passed as they all squinted up into the rain, then finally someone called out: “Here they come!”

  Alice spun in the direction of the pointed finger. Emerging from the clouds came an object shaped like a giant onion, its two contra rotors whirring. It hit the muddy ground with a bang, swayed but didn’t topple. The rain steamed off its still blisteringly hot metal. Despite that Alice and her squad rushed towards it to offload
the cargo inside.

  Forty minutes later pods were still coming down thick and fast, and Alice’s work party was starting to fade.

  “Move it! Move it! Move it!” she screamed hoarsely as they rushed back and forth from the latest drop-pod to the truck, heaving in bulky ammunition boxes. The landscape was now dotted with pods and even as they scurried back and forth like ants still more were landing.

  She paused to get her breath back. A few pods had landed on top of each other but so far she didn’t think they’d landed on any workers. Then suddenly she was aware of a shadow.

  “ALICE!” she heard Damien shout in the distance. Before the trenches she might have looked up, and that would have been the end of her, but now by automatic reflex she instead dived away. The pod crashed down centimetres behind her, sending out a muddy splash. She lay in the mud, feeling water flow down the front of her jacket. Damien rushed around the pod.

  “Jesus, are you alright?”

  “Fantastic,” she replied tiredly as she rolled onto her back and stared up through the rotors as they slowed down.

  He sat slumped down in the mud.

  “Jesus, I thought you were dead.”

  “Nope, not yet,” she replied. “I don’t know why though. I’m supposed to be a bloody language expert but now I have a set of stripes and people keep shooting things at me!” She raised her head and glared at him. “I’m not going to die on this rat hole of a planet. I’m going to survive, get home and get a nice, safe, boring university job,” she said as she rolled back onto her feet. As she tottered away Damien heard her shout: “what the hell is everyone standing around for? What’s this? A fucking union meeting?”