The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (20 page)

Shaking her head, terrible doubt now crept into Willis’s mind. They couldn’t even be sure the Fast Division had even received its orders. Or that Admiral Lewis had decided to obey them. Could the fleet’s iceman have decided to follow his own course and deliberately sacrifice the austerities? This was the same man who more than a year before had hung her out to dry on the old
Hood
at Alpha Centauri. No way to know. On her display she could see the rest of the Home Fleet climbing up and away from Earth, but if the Fast Division didn’t arrive soon, this would be over before they could achieve firing range.

“Helm, make our facing one, two, zero dash zero, zero, zero, then go full burn on engines for ninety seconds and then cut power to them,” she ordered.

“Skipper?” The helmsman’s alarm was clear in his voice.

“Those are my orders. Do what you can with the manoeuvring thrusters.”

Black Prince
shuddered and Willis was pressed back in her seat as the engines went to max power. As they slowed, the Nameless accelerated to close the range – perhaps sensing this was a last stand by ships that knew they were about to be overwhelmed. As that thought crossed Willis’s mind,
Cetshwayo
took a direct hit from a mass driver missile. Two engines were blown clear of their mountings and flame wreathed the tumbling cruiser as her last reactor scrammed. Escape pods started to blow clear of their silos as her surviving crew abandoned the doomed ship.
Black Prince
shuddered left and right as missiles struck her on either side. Half of point defence went down, while B turret and one of the flak guns went offline. Within seconds, the latter came back on as the Lazarus systems found a surviving connection. On the holo,
Saladin
flashed multiple damage codes as missiles hammered into her, then the holo shuddered and the figures disappeared.

“Bridge, Coms! We’ve just lost the whole coms system!”

A glance to her left confirmed the communications group was sitting in front of either blank or frozen panels.

“Understood, restore if you can,” she ordered. “Report to damage control if you can’t.”

The communications lieutenant gave a jerky nod before grabbing his second-in-command and making for the hatch off the bridge. She turned back to the main holo just in time to see seven green blips appear on the display – right on the Red Line. Even though
Black Prince
couldn’t receive transponder codes any more, she knew those blips could mean only be one thing.

“All hands! This is the Bridge. The Fast Division has arrived. We’ve got them now!”

There was a cheer across the intercom and Willis found she was one of the cheerers too.

___________________________

As the ships of the Fast Division jolted back into real space,
Deimos
’s holo blanked out then started to refill as the computer absorbed more up to date information. The Nameless Fleet was still there, accelerating towards the remainder of the convoy escort. They were close to the Blue Line, still far enough out to jump, but moving too fast to do so! While a target was moving, the shooter would have to fire on several subtly distinct bearings, to cover the different deflections and compensate for any evasive manoeuvres. But with a stationary or near stationary target, instead of settling for hitting with one or two plasma bolts each time, an entire salvo could be put in. With their long-range missiles and fragile hulls, the Nameless had nothing that would survive that kind of beating long enough to jump. The tactical section was already working out whether their foe could jump before the Fast Division reached gun range. As Crowe studied the holo and measured by eye, a smile crept across his face. There were no missiles coming towards them, indicating that whatever else might be happening, the Nameless hadn’t seen them coming. But how fast could they react?

As Crowe wondered, the bridge crew were already following the orders they been given before the jump. The rest of the Fast Division paused just long enough for the
Deimos
to slide up through the formation alongside
Warspite
. As their fighters deployed out in front, the torpedoes slipped clear of their silos and began to angle away into flanking positions, to box in the Nameless.

“Sir, enemy is signalling on the FTL A Band,” the communications officer reported.

Pulling it up on his own screen, Crowe could see a spasm of signals coming from several of the enemy capital ships. The fire being directed at the remains of the convoy withered as the alien formation began to shift, and their ships reversed heading and began to brake hard. Even without being able to read their signals, there was no doubt that the Nameless had been thrown into confusion. But in a few minutes, perhaps even seconds, they would realise that there were a lot more ambushed ships than ambushers

“Fire Control, Bridge. Prepare to engage missiles with flak guns, but reserve plasma cannons for anti-ship fire,” Crowe ordered. “Capital ships are first priority, then carriers, then cruisers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tactical,” Crowe continued, “I want any ship that slows enough to jump flagged to fire control, priority as before. We can kill escorts and scouts ‘til the cows come home, but the big boys are where it counts.”

“Understood, sir.”

On the display, the fighters that had been streaming up from Earth changed course. Instead of trying to fight their way through to the enemy starships, they were taking positions to block their possible escape routes.

“Sir, just caught a signal from the
Titan
: all ships make best speed to the enemy.”

On the holo, Crowe could see the formation of the Home Fleet starting to open up as the faster ships stretched their legs. Within minutes, the fleet had broken into layers with the destroyers out front, followed by the faster cruisers, then their heavier brethren and finally the battleships lumbering in the rear. The race was on. If enough Battle Fleet ships could reach gun range, then the Nameless could neither run in real space nor stop long enough to jump.

Beside
Deimos
there was a rippling flash as
Warspite
’s heavy plasma cannons belched out her first salvo and seconds later a Nameless fighter carrier died.

“Bridge, Sensors. We have incoming.”

“Fire Control, engage as directed. Point defence, commence, commence, commence!”

___________________________

On the
bridge of
Warspite
, Lewis eyed the holo impassively as the blip for an enemy capital ship blinked out. They had already claimed a carrier and a cruiser, but they needed another three minutes to get the smaller guns of his cruisers into range. He would get there before the Nameless could slow enough to have the option to jump. The question was what to do when he did? Turn, hold range and present broadside? No, he decided after a moment. The order given before they had jumped in remained the best option – close in on the enemy fleet and get in amongst them. At such short range,
Warspite
would inflict considerable damage before she could be overwhelmed.

Following the holo, Lewis could see whoever or whatever commanded the enemy fleet was starting to recover from their surprise. The alien fleet had commenced damage limitation and was resettling. Their escorts were braking harder than their bigger ships, causing them to move up through their fleet and into the line of fire. To come close enough to a dead stop in order to jump while the Fast Division was in gun range would result in the loss or crippling of most of their large ships. So while their engines were going full burn,
Warspite
’s computer reported that the most of enemy’s ships had stopped attempting to brake. Instead, they were now attempting to reverse course in a loop that would maintain as much speed as possible. This would allow them to build up a sufficient lead on the Home Fleet to give them enough time to then slow and jump before the humans got into range. But first they had to eliminate the Fast Division.

Good decision, Lewis silently acknowledged his opposite number. Having established there was no painless way out, he, she or it had the courage or ruthlessness to follow that line of reasoning. Otherwise, they would get caught by the Home Fleet and lose everything. Coming up through Lewis’s command would still carry a price, but destroying the Fast Division in the process would go a long way towards offsetting any shift in the balance of power.

“It appears they have decided their way out is through us,” Lewis said calmly. “Captain Holfe, beware of ships attempting to ram.”

“Understood, Admiral,”
Warspite
’s captain replied across the com.

“Cruisers are entering firing range now,” someone reported, as holo icons appeared showing the vessels commencing fire.

The handful of missiles coming at them had stopped as the fleet gathered itself to put in a concerted effort. Then dozens of new contacts appeared as they began to fire en masse. The ships of the Fast Division had been chosen because
Warspite
and the six heavy cruisers had traded in their big railguns for flak batteries, which now joined with
Deimos
to lay down a wall of protective fire against the approaching missiles. Dozens of them burst as shrapnel ripped them apart. None of the lumbering cap ship missiles got past, but smaller projectiles threaded their way through and
Warspite
started to jerk as missile after missile hammered into her armour.

“Admiral!”

Lewis spun his head towards the shout.

“New enemy contacts jumping in! Dead astern!”

___________________________

The Fleet Command Room was near silent. Never intended to provide tactical control, it now served as an auditorium for those fleet personnel not serving on the defending ships above. Several hundred men and women lined the back wall, following the situation, knowing their presence was barely tolerated by those carrying the burden of command. When a cluster of alien blips appeared behind those representing the pitifully few ships of the Fast Division, just inside the Red Line, something like a sigh ran round the room.

“Admiral?” Secretary Callahan asked.

“It’s another forty ships,” Wingate confirmed. “That means that the enemy has now fed in all the ships they have in the system. As things stand the Fast Division is about to be sandwiched. Admiral Lewis will be enveloped and overwhelmed before the rest of the fleet can reach him, but they have no more ships to throw in.”

“Oh my God! What can we do?”

Wingate nodded to his staff captain, before turning back to the Secretary.

“Nothing more. Our last reserves are now being committed.”

___________________________

As
D for Dubious
jolted into real space, an alarm sounded in Alanna’s ear. She glanced down at her control panel and nearly threw up. They’d emerged a few kilometres into the Red Line. The drive had just about managed to open the conduit, but those few kilometres had been enough to total it. Schurenhofer let out a squeak of alarm as she realised what had nearly happened.

“Forget it,” Alanna muttered, “we aren’t dead.”

But on her screen, two fighters were missing. Squadron Commander Dati had been the one to choose and calculate the jump in point. Still filled with that burning anger of his, he’d pushed too close and he and another crew had paid the price when their fighters failed to make real space re-entry. But there was no time to reflect on how close they’d come to sharing the same fate. Ahead lay their target – the Nameless reserves.

There was just one carrier and its fighters were mostly deployed, enough to hold off the twenty fighters accelerating towards them.

Pity for you bastards we aren’t alone
, Alanna thought as behind them
Huáscar
,
Dubious
and the escort destroyers of all three carriers jumped in and charged. They were the final elements of a line that stretched forwards through the fighters, the enemy relief force, then the Fast Division, the main Nameless fleet and finally the Home Fleet climbing up from Earth. 

“Talk about the conga line of death,” Schurenhofer observed.

Alanna gave her a quick grin.

“All wings, concentrate on the enemy fighters, then target the big boys!” she ordered as
Dubious
accelerated in and astern – like her lost namesake –
Dauntless
charged willingly into gun range.

___________________________

Commander Berg was tossed back and forth in her chair as
Mantis
jinked left and right. The rest of the destroyers were also taking evasive action while the two carriers laid down fire from their flak guns – protecting their smaller brethren. Across the command channel, she could hear her gunnery officer swearing as he struggled to compensate. So far the fire from
Mantis
and the rest of the destroyers had been wild and ineffective. They needed to advance through this killing ground and get in among the enemy ships. The Nameless rearguard was turning to meet them and missiles were starting to fly.