The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) (3 page)

Although an organisation independent of any single administration, Battle Fleet was still answerable to the world
’
s governments. Mercifully it had been recognised when the fleet was founded that it couldn
’
t answer to all those governments all at once. That would have resulted in the kind of institutional paralysis that routinely afflicted the old United Nations. Instead there was a council made up of the governing executives of eight nations. While membership of the Council changed periodically in accordance with a hugely complicated political formula, in very loose terms there was a seat for each of the American continents and two each for Asia and Europe, while the remaining two were split between Africa and Australia/Pacific Rim. Currently the council members consisted of the Presidents of the United States, Egypt and Brazil, the Prime Ministers of China, Britain, Australia and India and the Chancellor of Germany.

Secretary Daniel Callahan, the fleet
’
s political head, sat down heavily, looking out of breath.

“
The flight was delayed,
”
Callahan said by way of explanation. Wingate had barely seen the Secretary since the war began. In an era in which modern technology could make it seem like you were in the same room as someone who was actually half a world away, diplomats still set great store on face-to-face contact.

“
We have agreement on most of the dockyards Cody. I expect the last holdouts will fall into place within the next week or two,
”
Callahan continued quietly.

“
Good,
”
Wingate replied,
“
I need those facilities Daniel.
”

“
Yes, believe me the sight of dozens of ships coming back with bits missing focused a lot of minds.
”
The Secretary
’
s voice dropped.
“
My discussions also brushed across other issues. We seriously need to talk.
”

Before Wingate could reply, there was a chime from the ceiling.

“
Everyone, please rise for the Council.
”

Across the table, the eight holograms of the council members flickered into being. In the centre chairman position sat the hologram of the President of the United States, Ruth Clifton.

“
Please, everyone be seated,
”
she said.
“
Thank you for coming. We
’
re here to discuss and agree our strategic direction for the next few months. The fleet has made a number of recommendations, which have been forwarded to you. The core of these recommendations is that the fleet stands on the defensive for between six months to a year.
”
Everyone present had read the recommendations but a murmur of voices still ran round the room.
“
A number of governments not currently sitting on this council have contacted me to express their
…
concern regarding this proposed strategy. It seems overly
…
passive. Admiral Wingate, do you have any comment?
”

Wingate pushed himself to his feet.

“
Council members, I know all of you have read our report in great detail. However I would like to reiterate what I believe are the two key points. Firstly, on the twenty-third of July, at Baden, the fleet lost a battleship, a fighter carrier, six cruisers and seven destroyers. The clash at Alpha Centauri cost us another six cruisers, six destroyers and a fighter carrier. I cannot overemphasise, those ships are gone for good. We cannot build replacements of equal capabilities quickly enough to be of any relevance to this war. The replacements that are slated to come online over the next eighteen months will be smaller, less capable ships. Of our surviving combat units, almost all of the remaining ships of both the First and Third Fleets are in need of repair, major in many cases. Finally the reactivation of the mothballed fleet and replacing casualties means that our pre-existing manpower reserves are effectively gone. As of this moment, Battle Fleet possesses less than half the effective combat capability it possessed six months ago. A gratifying number of volunteers have signed up and we
’
ve had transfers from national militaries, but it will be a year before the volunteers and six months before the transfers are ready for active service. We are prioritising repairs to return the maximum number of ships to service as quickly as possible. We are also doing conversion work to a number of vessels, mostly notably the old battleship
Fortitude
, to make them better suited to the conditions we are now facing. Nevertheless we still face a dangerous period while we try to recover our strength. The second issue is the Nameless themselves. We know essentially nothing about them - who they are, what they are, their war aims, their bases, and their origins. All of these things are a blank. So while we repair and rebuild we also need time in which to attempt to find some of these answers.
”

“
So essentially this would see the majority of the fleet remain close to Earth?
”
Clifton asked.

“
With the bulk of our heavy units, that is correct Ma
’
am. A number of lighter units are currently deployed away from Earth, principally for intelligence gathering. We are also currently developing plans to establish a defensive perimeter further from Earth, once damaged units become available again. If opportunity arises, we will mount localised offensives but we do not at this time seek another fleet clash.
”

“
Admiral,
”
the speaker was the Brazilian Premier,
“
it strikes me that we losing an opportunity to press the advantage won at Alpha Centauri.
”

Wingate looked over at Lewis.

“
Admiral Lewis, can you answer that please.
”

“
Yes sir,
”
Lewis replied, before turning to speak.
“
Council members, attempting to follow up the recent engagement returns us to the problems outlined by Admiral Wingate. We are constrained by a lack of information, the sheer vastness of space and the absolute necessity to commit the bulk of our assets to the defence of Earth. This makes even finding the Nameless difficult. Added to this, unless we have clear targets to aim for, like bases or a homeworld, we cannot seriously hope to force contact. A Nameless squadron or fleet that finds itself outmatched and has nothing that obliges it to stand and fight can opt to retreat. Put simply, attempting to seek and destroy the Nameless at this time is likely to be about as productive as attempting to punch fog.
”

“
What about sending out raiding ships? In the last war you yourself tied down considerable
enemy assets with one ship
Admiral
,
”
the Brazilian persisted.

“
Again sir, that runs into the problem of not knowing where the Nameless are based. When I commanded the
Onslaught
during the last war, those ships I destroyed were in close proximity to Aèllr worlds. Even if we assume that like our ships, theirs have to drop into real space periodically to purge heat sinks and we knew their route, the chances of finding transport ships on route would be infinitely remote. If we do identify their homeworld however, or secondary worlds of the Nameless, then the use of raiders will be an option.
”

The Chinese Premier spoke for the first time.
“
On the subject of the Aèllr, have we seen any movement on their side of the frontier?
”

“
The answer to that is a qualified no,
”
Wingate replied.
“
The vessels we used in covert operations across the frontier have been redeployed for scouting duties. We have deployed the battleship
Resplendent
along with the cruisers
Murrumbidgee
,
Antarctica
,
America
and six destroyers all under the command of Rear Admiral Melchiori, to patrol the frontier. We can say that at this moment no Aèllr vessel has been detected crossing into our space.
”

“
If they do?
”
someone asked.

There was a silence on the military side of the conference table.

“
We get crushed,
”
Lewis said flatly.

“
Melchiori
’
s force is no more than a trip wire, but it is also as much as we can spare,
”
Wingate followed on.
“
The Aèllr don
’
t make decisions particularly quickly and remain casualty averse. So as long as we can keep up appearances on the frontier systems, that should be enough.
”

“
What about the Tample star nations?
”
President Clifton asked.

“
They are more of a problem,
”
Wingate admitted.
“
When the Second Fleet returned to Earth, the Twelfth Cruiser Squadron was left behind to defend the Dryad system. Those are modern ships that we cannot afford to leave there. We propose to replace them with the reconstituted Cruiser Squadron Eighteen.
”

“
That being?
”

“
Four reactivated Contact War era vessels - first generation starships.
”

Clifton frowned slightly.

“
That would make those ships well over thirty years old, Admiral. Do you believe that is adequate?
”

“
It is what we can spare, Madam President. The jump drive technology of the Tample nations is inferior to ours. The worse case scenario from that direction is the complete loss of the Dryad system. However their jump drive technology won
’
t allow them to get any further than Dryad,
”
Wingate paused and shrugged.
“
It is not a perfect deployment but Earth is the priority and even those old cruisers are slightly superior to Tample ships. Our ultimate reasoning however is that Dryad is a place we can afford to take a hit.
”

“
I see,
”
Clifton replied, before looking up and down the Council members.
“
Does anyone have any comment?
”

“
I don
’
t like leaving the civilian population there so exposed. Is there any possibility of evacuating Dryad?
”
the German Chancellor asked.

Wingate paused before answering.

“
The system
’
s population is a hundred and twenty thousand
…”

“
One hundred thirty, sir,
”
Admiral Fengzi interrupted.

“
Thank you. Evacuation would take at least a year and tie up every personnel transport available to the human race. So it isn
’
t a practical proposition.
”

“
We could evacuate the children within a practical time frame, assuming no hostile move against the system,
”
Lewis said.
“
But assuming parents were even willing, the separation period might run into years.
”

“
Maybe practically possible, Admiral, but politically
…
very, very difficult,
”
Clifton replied.
“
However that option is one we will certainly keep on the table. Moving on, the Nameless themselves, what do we have?
”

“
In truth, a lot of speculation but precious few facts,
”
Wingate said.
“
What we have is mostly based on observational data. We can now be sure that the Nameless currently favour missile armament exclusively. Their jump drive equivalent allows them to cross inter-stellar distances faster than our ships and also allows them to re-enter real space about a third closer to a planetary body, depending on the size of that body. On the positive side however, in real space their ships have markedly inferior power-to-mass ratios, meaning their ships lack armour and have inferior acceleration. Also while they can cross inter-stellar distances more quickly than us, this appears to come at the cost of higher fuel
expenditure. The big downside however remains their long-range missiles. These weapons can fire effectively from far beyond our ability to return fire. The only counter we currently have to this would be fighters, but since we only possess two carriers, the
Akagi
and the
Illustrious
, our ability to use them is limited
.
”