The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) (8 page)

Both of them dashed for the nearest lift down to the lowest level. Chevalier jammed his key into the override, to force the lift to immediately come to their level, but it was a painfully long two minutes before they got to the bottom of the shaft. An electric buggy was waiting and the startled driver didn’t need any persuasion to floor the accelerator. Finally, five minutes after the alarms had started blaring, the two officers dashed past the armoured blast doors and into the heart of Douglas Base, Four C: The Command, Control and Communication Centre. The great chamber, fifty metres across, was in a state of near chaos as officers and ratings ran back and forth. The holographic display in the centre of the chamber was set to its default, showing Landfall and the space up to the edge of the planet’s mass shadow. Eulenburg glanced at it but there didn’t seem to be anything other than routine traffic visible.

“
Officer of the Watch!
”
Eulenburg bellowed over the noise.
“
Report!
”

An officer ran over and threw a cursory salute.
“
Commander Afful, sir, Officer of the Day, sir. A few minutes ago we started receiving an FTL transmission from Baden. They
’
re under fire sir, right now!
”

“
Who the hell is attacking them?
”
Eulenburg demanded.
“
Is the Third Fleet engaging?
”

“
Right now, sir, I just don’t know. Some of what we’re getting is garbled,
”
Afful replied with a shake of his head.

“
Commander, sir!
”
a petty officer rushed over with a computer pad in his hand.
“
Sir we’ve decoded the latest transmission stream.
”

Afful snatched the pad out of the man’s hand.

“
Sir, it’s the Nameless,
”
he said after a moment,
“
they’re firing on the base!
”

“
Oh God!
”
Chevalier muttered.

“
The Third Fleet?
”
Eulenburg said quietly.

Afful swallowed hard before replying.

“
It’s been caught at mooring, sir. They’re taking losses.
”

Eulenburg glanced towards one of the displays at the centre of the chamber. It showed the Baden asteroid, viewed through the powerful telescope of one of the sky watch satellites. The base was built onto the side of the asteroid facing away from Landfall but everything looked serene, with the engine flare of a transport the only thing visible. But Baden was in the region of ten billion kilometres away from Landfall, making the image about nine hours old.

“
I’ve ordered the base onto alert, sir,
”
Afful continued.
“
Our defence missile batteries are starting to coming online sir, and space and atmospheric fighters are being fuelled and armed. The
Hampton Roads star fort has been alerted.
”

“
Good, right
…
err
…”
Eulenburg paused as he tried to get his thoughts in order. It was all too sudden, too much to take in all at once, too many decisions and orders to be made and given.

“
Have we got hook up with the Chinese and Americans?
”
Chevalier asked Afful as Eulenburg hesitated.

“
Err
…
I’m not sure, sir,
”
the captain replied looking round.

“
I need you to confirm that now,
”
Chevalier continued.
“
If they aren’t already, they need to go on alert and bring their missile batteries online.
”

“
Yessir!
”
Afful replied before dashing off.

Chevalier roughly grabbed Eulenburg’s arm, forcing him round.

“
Alfred, are you here!
”
he demanded.

Eulenburg visibly shook himself.

“
Yes, yes. Erm
…
Right, Sebastian, I need your marines to get the civilian support staff down into the shelters. Erm
…
get the point defence lasers in position.
”

“
Yes sir, we’ll be securing the perimeter as well.
”
Chevalier hesitated, clearly trying to decide whether his superior had recovered his composure.

“
I’ll be fine Sebastian, get the defences up. I need a conference hook up to the settlement governors. We have to get the whole planet onto alert.
”

___________________________

Alice sat down heavily on the metal steps, her muscles twanging painfully as she tried to massage the pain away. People continued to push past her, as they made their way down. She wasn’t sure how many steps there’d been. She’d started counting beneath her breath after about the twentieth and lost count somewhere around three hundred and fifty. The stairs were packed with people as far as she could see, both forward and backwards. Voices echoed eerily up and down the stairwell. Metal stairs surrounded by stone didn’t give the sound anywhere to go, so hundreds of footsteps and scores of voices merged into a near deafening white noise. Alice didn’t suffer from claustrophobia but here in a stairwell that seemed to go down forever, she was feeling uncomfortably constricted. Then a pair of hands grabbed her under her arms and heaved her back onto her feet. Her muscles screamed as weight was once again applied.

“
Up we get,
”
a female petty officer said as they started moving downwards again.
“
Can’t have you sitting there missy. It will get very messy if someone trips over you.
”

“
How far down are we going?
”
Alice asked when she got a spare breath. Her right leg seemed to have part recovered but the left was cramping painfully. The petty officer still had a supporting arm round her waist, which was all that was keeping them moving.

“
Until we reach the bottom,
”
the PO replied.
“
Or start to smell feet!
”

Alice wanted to ask the woman what was happening but at that moment, simply didn’t have the breath to do it with.

Even with the PO’s help, her progress was slower than the people ahead and a gap would open. Then every so often a group of fleet personnel would come pushing up and they’d have a chance to catch up. One of the groups was a squad of marines, fully armed and dressed in responsive armour. With the dull lighting and their lowered visors, their faces weren’t visible, which to Alice somehow robbed them of their humanity.

After an indeterminate period they reached a landing where another petty officer was directing people off the stairs, into a large cavern. The floor had been roughly smoothed and lights fitted to the ceiling, but it was still very obviously a cave. There were already a couple of hundred people milling around. The petty officer who
’
d helped her left as soon as they reached the cavern. She’d fallen behind the rest of her group on the stairs and it took some time to find them among the teeming masses. People kept stopping her, asking whether she knew what had happened. Somewhere in the cavern it sounded like someone was having a hysterical episode. Finally she found her own party. They were on the far side from the entranceway, where the smooth floor ended and the cavern beyond remained in its natural state. As she approached them, Alice found herself hoping she didn’t look as shell-shocked as they did. Leah was sitting on the ground, visibly shaking. Alice sat down beside her and put a comforting arm around her friend.

“
You okay sweetie?
”
she asked softly.

“
I don’t like it here,
”
Leah whispered.
“
I don’t understand. Why are we down here?
”

“
I don’t know Leah, but they must have a reason.
”
Alice stroked her friend’s hair gently.
“
Look on the bright side, you might run into your boyfriend down here.
”

Leah smiled weakly and rested her head on Alice’s shoulder. She glanced up at the rocky ceiling and shuddered.

“
I never met him underground,
”
Leah whispered.
“
I don’t like being here. I don’t like feeling rock over my head.
”

“
I know,
”
Alice said.
“
I don’t like it either. But think of it this way. These caves have been around for centuries
…”

“
More like tens of thousands of years,
”
Leah cut in.
“
At the very least.
”

“
Yes, which means they aren’t going to fall down today. Anyway, I’m sure this is some kind of mistake. Once they realise this is a false alarm we’ll be gone again.
”

“
I hope they let us use the lift this time,
”
Leah sniffed.

___________________________

Eulenburg ran his hand through his hair leaving it in spiky tufts, before ramming his cap down over it. He was waiting impatiently in Four C’s main communication suite. On the table in front of him, his screen was showing that while the communication connections he wanted had been established, only seven of the seventeen had the right person at the other end of the line ready to talk. There were about thirty odd national colonies on Landfall, plus one independent. Of those, seventeen belonged to major industrialised countries, making their governors or governments the ones Eulenburg paid attention to. There was an old precedent from the early days of Landfall’s settlement that when a senior Battle Fleet officer needed to communicate with the colonies, he spoke to them all together. With so much national prestige tied up in the colonies, it tended to cause trouble if one or more got the idea they were being kept out of the loop. Certainly the head of Douglas needed to minimise friction with the colonies, but in these kinds of situations it was a clunky arrangement. Twenty minutes had already been wasted waiting. There were also the military forces of the various nations stationed on Landfall. Of those, the Chinese and the Americans were far and away the most important. They were the only reason he’d waited this long already, since, like Douglas Base, their installations housed missile batteries capable of firing at orbiting ships. Those missile batteries and the fortress the Americans had in orbit, had come online almost as fast as Douglas’s. Still if everyone wasn’t online within the next five minutes, then protocol would be sacrificed and he’d start without them.

Five minutes later they were up to thirteen. The American governor hadn’t turned up but one of his deputies had stepped in. Eulenburg activated the communications circuit and thirteen figures ghosted into view as the hologram projectors switched on.

“
Representatives,
”
Eulenburg greeted them before the holograms came completely on,
“
I am sorry about the haste, but we do not have time to waste with pleasantries. Less than half an hour ago, Baden Station signalled via FTL that they are under attack.
”
There was a collective drawing of breath and several of the Representatives started to speak. Eulenburg continued regardless.
“
The situation is unclear but the base and the fleet are under fire. Douglas Base is now at a state of high alert. We have been in contact with Chinese and American military forces and have advised them to activate their missile batteries. I am now formally advising all of you to mobilise any and all military forces and installations.
”

There was a shocked silence in the room.

“
My god
…”
someone said quietly.

“
Admiral,
”
said Governor Gambon of the French colony,
“
are you really sure that
…
that this is real, that it isn’t some kind of drill or practice?
”

“
Yes sir, I am sure,
”
Eulenburg replied simply.

“
Who’s attacking?
”

“
Reports state that it is the Nameless and that the base is under direct fire.
”

“
Admiral sir!
”
the shout came from behind Eulenburg. It was his staff captain.
“
Sir, we’ve received another transmission from Baden,
”
Gillum reported.
“
The Third Fleet has just been ordered to retreat and scatter!
”