The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (50 page)

“Contact! Multiple contacts, bearing: zero eight, seven dash zero, zero, one. Range: one hundred and thirteen kay and
closing.”

Three blips appeared on the holo and Berg’s mind began to race as she took in what the display was presenting. They were outside of plasma cannon range, not by a lot but by enough so that they could peg at
Black Prince
without them being able to respond. It was exactly the situation she didn’t want. But the three were moving slowly and towards the small moon.
Black Prince
and
Zulu
were already moving more quickly and could accelerate harder than any Nameless ship. The display indicated the three hostiles were already too deep inside the moon’s small mass shadow to jump. There was still an opportunity to close to gun range and hit them before jumping away.

“Helm, turn eighty degrees to starboard, all ahead on engines!” she snapped. “Navigator, keep the jump calculations rolling.”

Berg barely heard the acknowledgements as she stared at the holo. Tactical identified the three contacts as escorts, early versions. None of the three was under power. In fact their engines were cold and dark. At any moment, the Nameless ships would begin to react. Would they attempt to make a run in real space or turn and fire? Either way, their first action would likely be to transmit the alarm. Seconds seemed to drag past like minutes. She frowned and looked at the bridge clock. Time wasn’t dragging, what felt like minutes actually were minutes, yet the three ships hadn’t reacted.

“Sensors, confirm we are getting no reading off their engines?”

“That is... confirmed Captain, passives are reading some residual heat but that is diminishing, not increasing. Captain, there is something else odd. The contacts’ current vector puts them on a collision course for that moon.”

There was puzzlement in the voice of the sensor officer and Berg shared it. Military grade engines could crash start but that wasn’t something any captain really wanted to do.

“Orbital insertion?” she asked.

“No Captain, unless they change course radically and soon, they will not go into orbit. They’ll go straight in.”

“What is the range to target?”

“One zero one, Captain.”

Berg bit at her lip, it didn’t feel like an ambush or if it was, it was a stupid one.

“Guns, target the nearest contact and fire.”

“Captain, be advised target is four thousand kilometres beyond effective range.”

“Understood, fire as instructed.”

At such range the firing solution should have been difficult. It took the plasma bolts several seconds to reach the target ship, any course adjustment by which would have been enough to cause a miss. Yet the target made no move as the six bolts bore down on it. Berg watched for a reaction. The six blips converged and disappeared as they impacted the escort. The damage couldn’t have been serious – at such range the plasma bolts would have lost coherency as their sustainer fields collapsed.

“Bridge, Sensors. Target heading is changing!”

“Sensors, give me a visual.”

For a moment she thought it was finally turning to face them, but no. She could see atmosphere escaping where the hits had pierced the inner hull. Jets of escaping gas caused the ship to slowly tumble. Meanwhile, the other two continued to drift along serenely. Powered down and on course to crash into a moon, there was only one explanation. These ships were being scuttled!

“Navigator, could we catch those ships to board them?”

The question was automatic and unthinking. To take a ship in anything resembling working condition, would be an intelligence coup beyond measure.

“That’s a negative Captain,” came the reply after a moment. “They will impact the moon before we could come alongside them. Our shuttles wouldn’t be able to do it either.”

“Alright, make calculations to rendezvous with the tanker,” she said as she watched the three doomed ships plummet to destruction.

“We’ll have to move faster,” Berg said across the video link, its screen was split between that of the captains of
Zulu
and
Ohio
, “because right now, we’ve been left behind.”

The two cruisers were on either side of the tanker. Fuel lines pulsed as hydrogen was forced along them. Berg had originally planned to travel one system further up before pausing to refuel but the sight of those undamaged ships cast aside, had caused a rethink.

“Well unless you two want to give me a push, I’ve already been doing my best speed,”
Ohio
’s captain said bluntly.

“I know. That’s why I plan for us to move at
our
best speed,” she replied. “Unless we get ahead or at least up to them, we’re not achieving anything.”

“What? That leaves me on my…”

“I know,” Berg cut him off. “Make your cool down stops in interstellar space and you’ll be safe. I know there’s a risk but we have to take the chance. I’ve had a think about this. It would make sense to abandon and destroy damaged ships that couldn’t fight. If ships simply couldn’t match the pace then you’d leave them to follow at their best speed. But those ships were scuttled and scuttled in a way that wouldn’t use resources. That says to me that they were probably stripped of fuel and munitions – yes I know I don’t have proof of that, but it is the only reasonable explanation.”

“Which would suggest the Worms are on right on the wire for supplies,” Captain Ewald said.

“Yes, if we take out one or two gates ahead of them, then any gateships are stranded. To do that we have to get ahead of them, but we stand no chance doing that travelling at the
Ohio
’s best speed.”

“Still, we need a destination and a rendezvous point for the
Ohio
to meet us.”

“The next few systems we skip completely,” she replied as she brought up a starmap. “But after that, star density drops and the routes the Nameless can take to the Spur narrow. See these two systems here. With full tanks, they’re within our range. Reconnaissance didn’t check them for fear of being spotted but the Nameless route to the Spur has to go through one or the other. I’ll take one,
Zulu
will take the other and, God willing, one of us will find something.”

“We’ll need to let
Herald
and
Messenger
know.” Ewald said. “If for no other reason than to ensure someone knows where we are.”

“Agreed,” Berg replied with a nod. “We have their planned route. We’ll launch a message drone each to three different systems and set them to make real space re-entry at the edge of the system where the Nameless can’t get them and transmit. Hopefully the two of them will be able to crack on at a bit more speed and reach us.”

___________________________

The days that followed were mostly spent in jump space, with their stops in real space cut as short as possible. With the decision made, Berg was left with a lot of time to second guess it. There was a sense of disquiet on board ship, especially once they separated from
Zulu
. Out here, at the very edge of the galaxy, they all felt very small and alone. Nobody said anything to her directly, not even the officers, but there were little indications. System checks on the emergency message drones and the escape pod’s hibernation capsules started to feature more prominently in the engineering reports. If something did happen to the
Ohio
, they would be left without enough fuel to go either forward or back.

“So?” Berg asked as she leaned over the shoulder of the sensor operator.

The close proximity of his captain was making the rating nervous, but after days of travel and nights of restless sleep, and now that they had finally reached the system that might be the Nameless route through to the Spur, Berg no longer had the patience to wait.

“We’re still getting reading from the passives, ma’am,” he reported. “It is a complex system.”

“It is a young star, Captain,” said the duty sensor officer. “A lot of the planets haven’t finished composing so there is a lot of material out there. A lot of blind spots.”

“What about the gas giant? Any reading on it?” she demanded.

They had come out at the edge of the system, beyond the heliopause and it was as well they had. There were planets, twelve at least, although going by the smears of asteroids, most of them hadn’t yet finished forming. In another few billion years the whole system would stabilise but for now this part of the cosmic dance was still chaotic. Amidst that chaos, something as small as a space gate would be difficult to see, even assuming it was there.

“Captain, the gas giant is approximately one eightieth larger than Saturn. Emissions indicate high levels of hydrogen in its atmosphere.”

“Concentrate the passives on it. If anything is here, then it is around that.”

“There may well be nothing here,”

“I know, Commander,” Berg said with a shrug “but now we’re here...”

After a further twenty minutes, Chuichi spoke again.

“It appears the gas giant had two or more moons that collided. They’ve spread a lot of debris between the planet’s Red and Blue Lines.”

When Berg made no reply he continued: “Putting a gate in there would be difficult.”

“It isn’t like we have anywhere else to look Commander,” Berg replied
wearily

“Contact!” the sensor rating warned.

Berg, too keyed up to go below, but too tired to stay awake, had been dozing in her chair and woke with a snort.

“It’s in a low orbit over the gas giant,” the rating continued. “Contact is only just coming over the horizon.”

“Are you sure it isn’t natural?” Chuichi demanded as he hurried over. 

“Negative, sir, we are detecting an engine burn.”

Chuichi pushed the rating aside as he leaned over the display. After several seconds he turned to Berg, with something almost like a smile on his face.

“Captain, the readings are consistent with Nameless ships.”

It took the contact another half hour to orbit far enough round the planet for
Black Prince
to get a clear view. It wasn’t ships after all or to be exact, it wasn’t just ships.

“Two cruisers, Captain. Both of which appeared to be docked and possibly under repair. Three or four escorts or scouts, seven or eight gateship transports and an orbital facility. We’re still not seeing a space gate though.”

“It must be here somewhere. Tell me about the facility,” Berg replied.

“It’s big, Captain. It’s seven hundred metres long and appears to be a mixed installation. One end has at least two dockyards and the rest appears to be a hydrogen refinery. Two hydrogen skimmers are docked on the far side and there seems to be two more docking points on this side. There are also a lot of storage pods visible, at least thirty.”

“Those pods would be enough for a fleet,” Chuichi said.

“If they’re full, then yes. Still no sign of the space gate?”

“There’s just so much material in the same orbital band, we won’t spot it unless it goes active.”

“That is a very deep mass shadow,” Berg observed.

This installation was better than anything she had even hoped for. This had to be the primary fuel source for the Nameless on this side of the Spur. If the Nameless fleet coming back from Landfall hadn’t passed through yet, then they couldn’t be far away. But if they got caught inside that mass shadow...

“I don’t think there is a clever way to do this,” she said after some thought. “With a mass shadow that deep, even if we jump out right on the Red Line, achieving firing range on the installation will take a minimum of six and a half hours, with another six to get back out.”

“That’s a long time in a mass shadow, especially as the first thing they’ll do is signal for help,” Chuichi grunted, “and we can’t use the asteroids as cover. By the time we’ll be close enough to engage the refinery, we’ll be well clear of them.”

“I am open to suggestions, Commander,” Berg replied mildly

“And if I had one I’d offer it Captain,” he said shaking his head. “It is a target that right now we can attack...”

“Therefore,” she finished, “we have no choice but to do so.”

Black Prince
shook as she dropped back into real space right on the Red Line and immediately went full burn. The Commander was certainly right about the Nameless response. Almost before they’d cleared the jump portal, communications was reporting FTL signals from the defenders. An hour later Coms confirmed a reply but could offer nothing on the proximity of the signal’s source. On the bridge, none of the officers made eye contact. No one wanted to be the person to suggest retreat. With a mass shadow this deep, it would be hours before either side would be close enough to fire and every hour spent going in, would mean another to get back out.

Ahead, the Nameless escorts had been accelerating towards them almost from the moment of detection. By contrast, it was nearly three hours after their jump in before the first of the enemy cruisers began to move. As it slid clear of the dock, the visual sensors could make out the front of the hull and see that it all-important cap ship missile launchers were opened up – and useless. The sensors could now make out that the second Nameless cruiser’s engineering spaces were also open. It was a target, not an asset. The escorts began to manoeuvre for position, spreading out, in order to direct fire along separate channels. Berg hoped it was a sign that they knew they were on their own.