The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (54 page)

Forgotten by friend and foe alike, the blip showed
Deimos
astern, continuing to drift on her last course.

___________________________

Alanna screamed as she slammed into the rim of the hatch. When the alarm had sounded she was sleeping and it had taken her sleep-fogged brain a moment to figure out where the hell she was. Coming out of the cabin she collided with Schurenhofer.

“To the fighter!” she’d roared as the two of them disentangled.

Climbing up and out of the centrifuge, she’d felt the ship’s guns begin to fire. When
Deimos
started to take violent evasive action, the two of them were thrown back and forth as they tried to pull themselves along the passageway. Grabbing an electrical junction box, Alanna launched herself at the next hatch, just as the entire universe seemed to explode. Everything twisted violently around her. Abruptly, instead of the hatch way opening, she was going toward the rim. Flailing desperately she tried to avoid it but there was nothing to grab. Pain exploded across her shoulder and chest as she hit unyielding metal and a moment later Schurenhofer cannoned into her from behind. Then all the lights went out. A moment later the red emergency lighting came on. Alanna barely noticed as she writhed in agony.

“Jesus, Skip! Are you all right?” Schurenhofer exclaimed.

It was seconds before the pain unclenched enough for Alanna to answer. By then, Schurenhofer was performing a basic medical examination.

“I think you’ve broken your shoulder, Skip.”

“Of course I’ve fucking broken it!” Alanna gasped.

Schurenhofer was already pulling a first aid kit off its wall mount.

“We need to…”

“Shut your yap,” Schurenhofer muttered. “We have to immobilise this.” Alanna gasped in pain as Schurenhofer got the sling into place. “We’ve got to get you to sickbay.”

“No, get to the fighter,” Alanna grunted.

“Skip, you can’t fly with a broken flipper!”

“Shut up and feel it.”

“What?”

“The engines, they aren’t firing.”

Schurenhofer laid her hand flat on the deck. There was usually the faintest of vibrations. Now it was totally still.

“Generators aren’t running either. That means both the reactors are off line,” Schurenhofer said in a sick voice.

“Get to
Jolly
. See if she’s still operational,” Alanna gasped as she pulled herself round with her good hand.

“Where are you going?”

“The bridge. Find me once you know the situation.”

Signs of damage were everywhere but with her intercom not tuned to
Deimos
’s command grid, she couldn’t hear anything. She passed several groups of crew, some obviously injured, others attempting to make repairs. It was obvious that confusion reigned. Finally she reached the bridge. The hatch had warped and two damage control ratings were trying to force it open with a pry bar. Alanna leaned her own mass into it and slowly the hatch gave way.

As soon as she pulled herself onto the bridge, she knew that they would find no one alive. The only light was from survival suit status displays – every one of them was red. The main holo was simply gone. Something had ploughed across the bridge, through anything or anyone that got in the way. Glancing to port, where Lieutenant Colwell and his section should have been, she could see the stars through the ragged gash in the hull.

She’d known most of the men and women that had served on the bridge when she’d been stationed on
Deimos
. Now she determinedly pulled herself past them without looking. Better to remember them as they once were. One though she had to check. The command chair was bent over but still in place, the seated figure within it, motionless. Pulling herself over with her good hand she gently pushed back the Commodore’s head. There were two ragged holes in his chest and blobs of blood floated in front of him. Crowe’s expression was one of surprise. When death came for him, he hadn’t had a chance to feel it. As Alanna hung there in front of the corpse of a man she’d respected, but one she’d known had doubts about her. She felt her eyes begin to sting – for him, for all of them, to have got from the war’s start to so close to the end... After a last look back, Alanna made her way out. There was nothing she could do here.

“The Commodore’s dead?” the junior lieutenant looked young, frightened and completely out of his depth. After reaching Damage Control, she’d finally got her suit tuned to the command frequency but there was only the one officer left to report to. The ship was in a state, cables had been ripped from their mountings, metal had crumpled like tinfoil, most sections seemed to have lost pressure and what was left of the ship’s systems were obviously running on the emergency batteries.

“What have we got?” Alanna asked. “Or more importantly
who
have we got? Where’s Commander Bhudraja?”

“He took a smack to the head, ma’am,” replied a petty officer. “He’s alive but he weren’t making a lot of sense. Heavy concussion I reckon. We got him down to sickbay.”

“The gunner?” she asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Alright, so what will we do?” Alanna asked turning back to the Lieutenant. As a pair of frightened eyes stared back at her, Alanna realised she had no recollection of him, which made him a newcomer to the ship. Here and now, he’d just frozen under the weight of responsibility.

“Alright, we need to un-fuck this situation
right now
! PO, get yourself down to engineering and get the most senior person still standing up here. You,” she continued, pointing at a random rating, “yes, you, sickbay, I need a report on who we’ve lost. You, Fire Control, tell the gunner to get down here, he’s probably now the commanding officer.”

When they hesitated she added: “Don’t stand there staring –
fucking
MOVE!”

“There you are boss.”

Turning, Alanna found Schurenhofer with the crew of
H for Humble
.

“Well?”

“Glad to see you too,” Schurenhofer replied, when Alanna gave her a get-on-with-it look. “
Jolly
’s dented, but the board is still green,” she continued. “She’s still space worthy.”

“
Humble
and the entire port side hangar are gone, though,” added Lieutenant Stein,
Humble
’s pilot. “
Jolly
might be okay but we need to open the hangar doors before you can launch.”

Alanna smiled slightly bitterly and wiggled the fingers of her injured arm.

“There’s no we, I won’t be flying out.”

“Boss?” Schurenhofer said.

“You’re right. I can’t fly. I’m... out. If we can we get
Jolly
off the deck, then you three head for a carrier. I’ll help here once we figure out who’s in charge.”

“Boss, I can…”

“No, Kristen, your place is still on a fighter. Report to me if or when you get the hangar door open.”

As they left, the surgeon came in, blood streaked up his arms and a face shield still clipped to the top of his survival suit.

“Shermer, what the hell happened to you?”

“Lost an argument with a hatch. Not important now. Where are we with casualties?” she impatiently replied.

“Twenty wounded so far, several of them serious so I can’t stay long. There are only three fatalities that I know of but damage control parties aren’t bringing in any bodies…”

“The Commodore is dead, as are the rest of the bridge officers,” Alanna told him. “I need to know about the other officers.”

“Err... Well, I have the Commander, who has taken a head injury. He’ll live, I think but he won’t be in any condition to command anything. The gunner was brought in, he’s dead.”

“What about the Chief?”

“Still alive,” the chief engineer’s voice came from behind here. “Although Christ knows how.”

His suit was scorched and there were cracks in his helmet visor. If he was surprised by Alanna’s presence he made no comment and she rapidly brought him up to speed.

“The first thing we need to know is who’s in charge,” she finished.

The surgeon and engineer exchanged a look.

“Lieutenant Commander, I think that’s you.”

“You’re not in the ship’s table of organisation but aside from me and the doc,” the engineer continued, “you outrank anyone still standing by a lot. I need to be in engineering and the doc…”

“Is not a ship’s captain,” finished the surgeon.

Alanna nodded, she’d suspected as much.

“Err... Captain... ma’am... someone,” the speaker was one of the damage control ratings.

“What is it?” Alanna replied.

“Ma’am, we just got the external cameras on line and we just saw the rest of the fleet jump out!”

Alanna turned back to the Chief.

“Can we save the ship?”

“Both the reactors scrammed,” he replied.

“Can they be got back online?”

“By the book start-up from a scram is at least three and a half hours.”

“Three and a half hours,” the surgeon exclaimed, “we’re sitting ducks. You’ve got to be able to do it faster…”

“Hey! This is not some science fiction bullshit where I can pull a number out of my arse!” the Chief responded heatedly. “If I try to restart a reactor that turns out to have a casing crack we could blow ourselves to kingdom come!”

“Chief, can you shave anything off that?” Alanna cut in.

He opened his mouth to object but paused.

“We were hit to port so the reactor on that side took a heavier G spike,” he said thoughtfully. “The starboard side is our better chance for a recovery. If I concentrate all the hands I have left on that, we might be able to take a bit off. But not much, Captain.”

Alanna made no comment on the honorific. They were alone, crippled and defenceless but someone was in command. Right now that was enough.

“Three hours is too long. I know you can only do what you can do. But right now we’re a written invitation for someone to come along and finish us off. We’ll retain a skeleton crew, mostly engineering, the rest will abandon ship. That might make us look like we’re not worth another missile or at the very least save most of what is left of the crew. Doctor, get the injured out first, then supervise the rest of the evacuation. Turning she spotted the young lieutenant she’d spoken to before.

“You, find the two most senior gunnery crewmembers you can. Get the rest off the ship.”

“I’ll ask for volunteers, ma’am.”

“No. Select two of them. The time for volunteers has gone,” Alanna said firmly. “Chief, get back to Engineering and get started on the reactor, but if we can’t save her...” She didn’t finish but the Chief understood.

“Skipper?”

“What is it Kristen?”

Alanna had buckled herself into Damage Control’s command chair after pushing aside the junction box that had brained Commander Bhudraja. For the moment there was little for her to do. The first escape pod was about to eject with a dozen of the most seriously injured who had been carefully loaded on board. Several of the unwounded had volunteered to stay. Whatever else, the crew of
Deimos
had retained their discipline.

“We’ve managed to crank the hangar doors open so we can go at any time. Lieutenant Stein is requesting instructions. We’ve got a full fuel tank so we can hold and offer some cover it they come back.”

“No, if they see a fighter hanging around,” Alanna replied, “they might jump to the right conclusion that we’re trying to save the ship. Tell the Lieutenant his orders are to return to the fleet, request search and rescue pick up survivors and to inform them we’ll rejoin them if we are able.”

“Alright, Skipper,” Schurenhofer replied reluctantly. She looked around the battered chamber. “Just promise me, Skip, you’ll run for a pod if it comes to it.”

“Off you go and don’t worry about that,” Alanna replied with a forced smile.

A short time later she watched on one of the few external cameras that still worked as
Jolly
undocked and left her behind.

___________________________

At the edge of the system, there was a brief ripple in the fabric of space before the messenger drone dropped into real space. Stencilled along its flank was MESSENGER.

“The drone arrived in system about an hour ago, sir,” Sheehan said offering the computer pad. The transmission reached us ten minutes ago.”

The staff officer sounded sick.

++To Commander Home Fleet from Commodore Brahimi, First Scouting Group: Advise that on 24th April enemy units in region of Landfall and Junction line commenced retreat towards the Spur. Enemy units have broken contact with advanced elements of the Second Fleet. Believed unlikely at this time that contact will be regained. Estimated one hundred plus enemy combat units are converging on your position. Estimated arrival time after the 15th May.++