The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (52 page)

On her display, Alanna saw Nameless fighters that had been lining up to dock having to break formation and lunge towards the two missiles, while the escorts surrounding the carriers redirected their attention.

“Wing, through and go for the engines,” she snapped into the radio.

“Roger.”

Alanna steadied
Jolly
, established with a glance that her wingman was still gamely clinging to her tail and continued to accelerate in. Neither of the anti-ship missiles made it to the carriers. But the need to stop them had thrown the enemy landing cycle into chaos. The Nameless fighters floundered as
Jolly
flashed through their formation, her turret guns firing left and right as she burned down the flank of the nearest carrier. The Worm fighters tried to follow, but they had shed velocity to land and now couldn’t accelerate hard enough to match the Raven.

As they passed the carrier tail, Alanna dragged
Jolly
’s nose round and pushed the engines to plus ten override. In her seat, Schurenhofer groaned at the deceleration. As the guns lined up on one of the carrier’s engine pods, Alanna fired and a moment later Schurenhofer directed the two turret guns onto a second pod. Both engines stuttered and expired as plasma bolts ripped at them. The threat detection system whooped again. The Nameless fighters they’d blown through were coming up fast and Alanna rolled
Jolly
away.

“The carrier’s jumping,” Schurenhofer called as Alanna twisted their craft to use it as cover from the approaching fighters. She raked it with fire until she saw the bolts pass straight through the now almost ghost-like ship. A few more seconds and the Nameless ships were gone. All that remained were thirty odd Worm fighters, with nowhere to land and more Ravens coming up from astern.

“Good work, everyone,” said Commander Deighton across the radio as they destroyed the last of the Worm fighters. “You especially,
Jolly
. Looks like you gave that carrier a good slap before it went. Everyone back on station.”

“Well surprise, surprise, that actually worked,” Schurenhofer said. “I didn’t think we’d get that close – I owe you a five.”

“They’ll be a lot more careful about how close they get the carriers,” Alanna replied as she lifted her hand away from the control column and flexed her fingers.

It was probably her imagination but when she’d first taken
Jolly
from stores, the new fighter had felt lighter and more responsive to the touch, but now, like old
Dubious
before her, the Raven had the feel of a tired warhorse. But that was probably just her projecting. Taking hold of the controls again, Alanna put them on course back towards the fleet.

“Anyway, status check,” she said.

“We are bingo fuel. We have one anti-fighter missile, three hundred rounds for the nose gun, two hundred for the dorsal turret and one hundred and fifty on ventral. We have fuel for seven minutes at full combat consumption. One more contact and we’ll be drifting and down to harsh language.”

The Nameless had been trying to use their fighters to interfere with the Home Fleet’s fighter screen. The human counter had been standing orders for the fighters. As soon as the Nameless battle line started to jump away, they were to run at the carriers and knock them out if they could. If this was not possible, they were force them to jump away and abandon their fighters.

“Give
Dauntless
our status and request authorisation to land and rearm,” she ordered.

“Maybe get some shut eye as well,” Schurenhofer said, “or is that me getting wildly optimistic?”

“That’s not optimism Kristen, that’s just crazy talk,” Alanna replied.

After they lost
Dubious
it had taken a few days to source a new fighter, but once it arrived and after they were assigned the letter J, Alanna decided to claim
Jolly
as their call sign. Schurenhofer seemed torn between whether this was a good sign or some new and ironic manifestation of her pilot’s psychosis.

Psychosis took effort though. Combat always got the adrenalin pumping but now sitting there, without either a computer beeping at her or any instructions coming through over the radio, she could feel her eyes starting to close as the tiredness returned. It was starting to feel like the Siege of Earth. Time was becoming a nebulous concept beyond understanding. She’d stopped thinking about the future – next year, next week, tomorrow, even just an hour from now, it was just too much effort for tired brain cells. All she could do was concentrate on making it through each moment, hoping someone would tell her she could lie down and... get... a... few... hours... of...

“Shit,” Schurenhofer said abruptly and Alanna’s head snapped up. “Skipper, you need to hear this,” Schurenhofer continued before flipping a switch.

“All fighters, flight leader.” Deighton’s voice was grim. “I have just received notification,
Dauntless
is negative, repeat negative, for fighter recovery operations. Stand by for instructions to redirect. Any pilots rated to land on cruisers make immediate contact with class types. Over.”

“How the hell?” Schurenhofer said. “
Dauntless
is smack in the middle for the fleet. How the hell did a missile get to her?”

“The inner screen is a lot more porous than it used to be,” Alanna replied before switching herself onto the radio channel. “Flight leader, this is
J for Jolly
, instructions received. Be advised I am rated to land on a Luna class cruiser.”

Alanna started flipping switches to power down systems.

“Understood
Jolly
,” replied Deighton, “Not sure how bad the situation is on
Dauntless
. How long until you have to refuel?”

Alanna glanced at Schurenhofer who shook her head.

“I am at bingo fuel Flight Leader.”

“Understood. Stand by,
Jolly
.”

Alanna waited impatiently. On her radar display she could see the duty fighters from the other carriers falling back, while others moved forward to take their position. The half dozen Ravens from
Dauntless
though were all drifting, as every pilot cut power to reduce fuel consumption to a minimum. The course they’d established to meet the fleet had been based on a longer acceleration period. Now drifting, their course convergence point was already behind the fleet and the gap was steadily opening.
Jolly
’s computer was dispassionately calculating how much fuel would be required to get back. The number was already worryingly close to that of their remaining fuel and getting closer.

“If the fleet jumps or accelerates we’re boned.” Schurenhofer said conversationally.

“
I know
.”

Another ten minutes ticked past and the fuel warning light came on.

“Flight leader, be advised
J for Jolly
is now declaring a fuel emergency,” Alanna reported.

“Understood, stand by.”

Alanna’s fingers drummed with increasing force on the control column. The Nameless attacks were erratic but they were now at a point where they would no longer have the fuel to either run or fight. Finally instructions came in across the radio.

“
Jolly
, you are to proceed with your wingman to the
Deimos
. Their hangars are clear and a ready to receive you.”

“Understood
Dauntless
,
Jolly
over and out,” Alanna replied as she powered up the engines again and searched for
Deimos
on her display.

“
H for Humble
. Form up on my wing. Do you have enough fuel to make it?”

“Just about
Jolly
, but I’ll need to land on the first attempt.”

Making their way down the approach lane,
Dauntless
’s transponder appeared on Alanna’s display. Schurenhofer focused one of their cameras on the distant carrier. There was a destroyer clearly standing by ready to assist. At such distance the detail wasn’t great – a gouge in the hull where the two aft portside hangars should have been was obvious though. The next pair forward was wrecked and pair after that were clearly splinter damaged.

“Dual-purpose missile then,” Schurenhofer said. “Looks like it locked onto the engineering section. It must have got really close to the Number Two Reactor.”

“If it had been a cap ship missile, there wouldn’t be anything left to see,” Alanna said grimly as she put
Jolly
onto approach. She’d left
Deimos
more than a year ago but still thought of it as more a home than any other ship she’d served on. Although the landing approach for the flak cruiser was always a bit more awkward than a proper carrier, it immediately came back to her. From within
Jolly
there was a cough as the last of the fuel went to the fighter’s reactor, just as the undercarriage touched down and the magnetic clamps got them.

Schurenhofer let out a long sigh of relief.

___________________________

“How bad is it, Captain?” Lewis asked.

The expression on the face of
Dauntless
’s commanding officer was grim.

“It was pretty much a fluke hit sir,” he responded. “The angle the missile struck meant that the blast came through the hangars access hatch and penetrated into the main hull. The blast front went through damage control and killed everyone in there. It also severed the main fuel runs to the hangars and that’s the big problem.

“Captain, can you get your ship to a state where she is capable of operations?”

“Right now we can take fighters on board in our starboard side hangars and we could arm them, but we couldn’t refuel them. In a few more hours I may know more but we need more hands. My executive officer is dead and so are most of his damage control parties.”

“I’ll have personnel transferred over and I’ll speak to you again. This is Lewis out.”

The Captain of
Dauntless
had already turned away from the screen before it blanked out. Lewis stared it, lost in thought until he caught movement in his peripheral vision.

“What is it, Captain?”

“Latest availability reports sir,” Sheehan replied as he handed over the computer pad.

Lewis scanned it. The list of ships reporting as fully combat worthy got shorter every day, while the list of those that were damaged but could still fight lengthened. But looming over both was that of the ships lost outright or that had been forced to limp over the system’s heliopause to be abandoned – so many fine ships and fine crews gone.

“And what of enemy losses?”

“Page four, sir.”

In contrast, this list was heartbreakingly short. The Nameless were expending ammunition, the Home Fleet was expending ships. The Nameless had bled fighters. By now there could barely be a human fighter pilot that hadn’t made ace, but their enemy still seemed able to keep their carriers fully stocked. Lewis had expected that by now some element of desperation would be creeping into their tactics, but not so. So far the Nameless had continued to snipe from a distance, largely safe from retaliation. They seemed to have abandoned their attempts to put in another gate. Did they realise the futility of it while the Home Fleet was in system or – and this was the stuff of nightmares – were supplies making it across the Rift by some other route?

“Order the Twentieth Destroyer Squadron along with the
Io
and the Third Cruiser Squadron to escort the barrage ship
Piper
to the supply fleet. All of them are to refuel and arm. We have three dedicated reconnaissance ships left. I want them dispatched to the three closest solar systems on this side of the Rift.”

Almost as soon as he spoke the order Lewis wished he had not. He could reverse it, only Sheehan would know but even that would be too little too late. He had just verbalised doubt.

___________________________

Black Prince
edged alongside the
Ohio
and a series of clunks echoed through the ship as the magnetic clamps locked onto the hull. The robotic arms quickly got the fuel hoses into position and Berg felt at least one source of tension melt away. She’d never seen fuel levels so low on any ship that wasn’t actually in space docks. They’d been forced to shut down a reactor and actually dump mass to reduce fuel expenditure. Even at that they’d barely made it.

“Well, we found absolutely nothing,” said Ewald. “Our charts proved to be inaccurate, not by a lot but enough that the system was too far from the next one for the Nameless to transit through.”

“Well we struck gold,” Berg replied, before briefly outlining the destruction of the Nameless fuel depot. “The Worms might have all the ships from Landfall but by the time they reach the Spur, they’ll be flying on fumes.”