The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (53 page)

“Congratulations! Oh and our message drones obviously found
Herald
and
Messenger
. One of their drones was here by the time the
Ohio
arrived. They haven’t managed to catch up with the enemy but as soon as they were close enough, they launched a drone towards the Home Fleet to warn them what’s coming. I guess we should have thought of that.”

Berg opened her mouth to reply then paused.

“What did the message say?” she asked.

“Here,” Ewald replied as he sent it across.

Berg read and as she did, a frown formed.

“Mutter des Gottes,” she muttered, “those fools should have sent nothing at all.”

Ewald looked nonplussed

“They’ve told the Home Fleet that over a hundred extra Nameless warships are about to arrive in theatre but there is no reference to their fuel situation. The Home Fleet won’t know that the Nameless are running on empty – that what is coming towards them is a glass hammer! Do you have a message drone?”

“No, when you were late arriving here, we launched our last one towards your position to double back here with any message you sent to it. It hasn’t arrived back yet. What about you?”

“We had to dump ours to make it here,” she replied as she felt a stab of bitter regret.

Everyone in the fleet knew the rough details, take the Spur then hold it. The Home Fleet’s exact situation was impossible to ascertain, but the message Lewis was about to receive indicated that a powerful, perhaps overwhelming, force was heading his way. How might he react to that intel? Could the war be lost for the sake of one message drone?

“Could you make a fast run to the Spur?”

“No,” Ewald replied without hesitation. “To get here as fast as we did, has already damaged my machinery.
Zulu
’s in no condition to make another fast run and that’s not the only factor. The fuel we have in our bunkers and
Ohio
’s tanks is enough to get us all back to the Junction Line from here. Go any further and that is no longer true.”

Berg made no reply as she mentally crunched the numbers. They’d lost ground on the Nameless coming up from Landfall. While the
Worms couldn’t be going full burn, not if they were as short on fuel as she suspected, it was still unlikely she could get ahead. Or could she? After a long transit, any fleet would need to at least pause to reform and get the latest information on the tactical situation. That would take a minimum of a few hours, maybe even a day or more, depending on the situation. She could potentially get there before those additional units joined the fight. The message drone though would reach the Home Fleet hours before she could. Would Lewis act on the strength of that message or wait for evidence?

“Carol, we do not have proof that the Landfall force has a fuel shortage. Not absolute proof,” Ewald said.

“And we won’t get
absolute
proof,” Berg replied. “But my ship was alone and deep inside a mass shadow. A squadron of cruisers would have been enough to hunt us down. It was an easy kill and they didn’t take it. No, we have better information than
Messenger
or
Herald
and we
must
pass that information on. Captain Ewald, once
Black Prince
has finished refuelling, you are to escort the
Ohio
back to Junction and inform Admiral Fengzi of developments. I will make for the Spur at best possible speed and –and hope for the best.”

___________________________

10th May 2069
 

“Jump in complete,” Colwell reported, “we’re on target.”

“Understood,” Crowe replied, “Coms, signal
Dauntless
to tuck in tight and be ready to manoeuvre.”

“
Dauntless
acknowledges, sir.”

The battered fighter carrier was already in closer to
Deimos
than normal safety margins would allow. Equally, their jump in was far closer to the rest of the fleet than would be acceptable under any other circumstances. Two days of repairs out beyond the heliopause, where at the very least there was no threat of attack and the carrier was ready to resume operations, just as long as they could get her back inside the fleet’s perimeter before the Nameless could react. Ahead, the fleet’s fighter screen distended outward to meet them, while around them debris from the Worm’s most recent attack still dissipated.

“That was well timed,” Crowe said, half to himself, as
Deimos
slotted back into her place in the fleet’s outer formation, while
Dauntless
continued inwards to her place. One of the barrage ships and a cruiser squadron were moving clear, on their way out to the supply fleet.

“Bridge, Coms. Sir, signal from Flagship, a piece of housekeeping.”

“On my screen,” Crowe replied before reading down. Most of it was a tactical update, with a summary of the twenty hours
Deimos
had been out of the line. There was also a transfer order for the two fighters again currently in
Deimos
’s bays. They were to go back to the carriers. It was disappointing but not surprising. There weren’t that many fighters left now. The carriers had enough berths for most of them with the balance earmarked for the most robust of the battle line ships. He’d spoken only briefly to Lieutenant Commander Shermer, enough for them to congratulate each other on their respective feats. After that, with no official position in
Deimos
’s table of organisation, she and the rest of the flight crews had disappeared into whatever bunks they could borrow and were likely now the most rested people on the ship.

“Lieutenant Colwell,” he said unclipping his seat. “I’m going below. Send someone down to Lieutenant Commander Shermer to inform her she and her flight are to return to
Dauntless
. No point launching just for the transfer. We’ll launch when an attack comes in or it is their turn to join the screen.”

That had been one of the things that virtually every captain in the fleet had been forced to learn here at the Spur. To get off their bridges and get themselves some rest. Before the war, it had been expected that battles would be a few hours of intense action, preceded by perhaps a few days of build up. But here at the Spur, as the days became weeks, he’d had to accept he could not stay on duty twenty-four, seven. To try would mean being useless when the action really did come. 

He could have chosen to eat in his own cabin but instead went to the main canteen. In gave an opportunity to see and be seen by the crew. Once he waved down any attempt to come to attention, there was a certain amount of carefully chosen questions from the junior members of his crew.

“No one knows, Mister Long,” he replied between mouthfuls to one such cautious question. “There are three things the Nameless need to sustain their fleet: fuel, ammunition and enough transportation to get those to their fighting ships.”

“Fuel is the easiest of the three. They can get that on this side of the Rift from many gas giants and while we have been able to mine the orbits of any such planets within several systems of here, they undoubtedly had stockpiles built up.”

“Transport is the next problem. They have a lot of transport ships but most are gateships and those gates cannot be put in a combat zone. So the Nameless are being forced to base their operations outside this system, wasting time and fuel transitioning warships in and out of the combat zone.”

“The final and most important factor is the ammunition. Without missiles they can’t fight and to get missiles, they must re-establish a connection to their home worlds. All they have is whatever stockpiles they had on this side of the rift.”

“We haven’t seen them use mass driver missiles in days,” remarked a sensor rating.

A few people around the table winced. Those missiles had always been a rarity but when used their potential for catastrophic damage was horrifying. No one on
Titan
had stood any kind of chance when they were hit.

“Well, you wonder what the bastards – sorry, sir – the enemy will do when they really do run out,” ventured another rating.

“They will have to cut and run,” Crowe replied. “Even they cannot fight without weapons.”

“It’s what they’ll do when they’ve nearly run out that worries me,” said another rating.

He mumbled it but everyone heard him. Crowe opened his mouth to reply just as the main alarm went off.

“Hold that thought,” he said as a mass scramble began for the hatch .

“Report!” Crowe ordered as soon as he entered the bridge.

“Enemy ships jumping in, bearing three, three, four dash zero, two, seven, range
thirty thousand kay
.”

“Guns stand by, get those fighters… wait! Sensors, confirm range at thirty thousand kilometres?”

“Confirmed, sir!”

Well inside plasma cannon range! The Nameless knew what kind of abuse human ships could hand out at such distance. With the ships still phasing in, the tactical count remained uncertain and composition unknown.

“Bridge, Coms. Signal from
Valkyrie
, firing instructions.”

“Transfer to Fire Control. Guns, engage in line with those instructions,” Crowe replied without taking his eyes off the holo, trying to figure out what the Nameless were attempting.

No, the Nameless must have made a positional mistake and jumped into the wrong location. Plasma bolts were now pouring out from the ships on the port side of the Home Fleet’s formation. One of blips blinked out as it came far enough into real space to be struck by half a dozen plasma bolts. Tactical started to establish a count, a dozen escorts, six cruisers and two cap ships, all near stationary from the jump and formed into a shallow arc. Another escort vaporised under a salvo from the battleship
Yavuz Sultan Selim
. The remaining ships began to accelerate hard, but not away from them or on evasive manoeuvres. No, instead they were powering in.

“Oh shit,” Crowe said quietly as he realised the
Deimos
was at the focal point of the half arc formation in which the Nameless had emerged.

The readings from the passives sensors showed every ship was red lining its engines. There was also order in the formation. Each of the larger ships had at least one escort between them and the Home Fleet, shielding the larger vessels. The smaller craft were being torn apart by a maelstrom of fire. Most never got a chance to fire but they were buying time for their larger compatriots, time to ready their weapons and obtain targeting locks. Sensors were showing infrared spikes as the larger ships prepared to fire.

While their escorts died, the larger ships swung out from behind them and, as one, simultaneously emptied every one of their launchers. Seconds later, one of their cruisers and a cap ship were destroyed, but the salvo they’d sacrificed more than a dozen ships for was off and away. On
Deimos
, the bridge holo flashed red as the computer registered that their course was set to converge with the cruiser.

Crowe’s eyes widened in horror.

“Evasive manoeuvres!” he bellowed. “Fire Control, everything on those missiles! Point Defence, commence, commence, commence! Countermeasures full spread!”

But the short-range launch meant
Deimos
’s computers hadn’t had enough time to track and prioritise the incoming missiles, now heading for them at full burn. Like the escort ships before them, the smaller dual-purpose missiles were out in front, sacrificing themselves to screen the cap ship missiles following behind. Other ships were now switching target from the fleeing starships onto the incoming missiles, but precious seconds had been wasted. The salvo melted away as it hit a hail of counter fire. Out ahead, one of the barrage ships belatedly opened up and consumed a few tail end Charlies, but as he watched Crowe realised it wouldn’t be enough.

“All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!” 

___________________________

On
Warspite
’s holo the
Deimos
briefly flashed damage codes then all information disappeared. The surviving Nameless ships were accelerating away. Not many would make it clear but on the holo, another group of icons was appearing on the opposite side of the fleet. This time the target was obviously
Deimos
’s sister ship,
Io
. 

“Fleet heading change!” Lewis snapped. “Bows down seventy degrees, maximum fleet acceleration! Navigation, calculate immediate jump to number four quadrant!”

With his orders issued, he could only look on as the fleet began to react. The barrage ship
Brahms
twisted out of formation to bring its broadside to bear and commenced firing to cover
Io
. Their intended target denied them. Twisting and losing ships as they came on, the Nameless formation threw themselves at the
Brahms
.