Free The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) by Edmond Barrett Page B

she could offer any reply.
     
    Nine hours after the alert started, the moment Eulenburg had been quietly dreading came. For nine hours the light speed emissions from Baden had been travelling through the space between Landfall and the lost base. A lot of officers and ratings who technically didn’t have any immediate reason to be there had gathered in Four C. Chevalier had returned from the surface looking work stained and tired, and now stood beside Eulenburg in the middle of Four C. The holo of the space surrounding Landfall was now almost completely blank. The last of the interstellar ships were only an hour from jump out, while in-system ships, which served the system’s asteroid miners, were still arriving and being abandoned in high orbit as their crews fled for the surface. The evacuation was starting to grind into some kind of gear. Every three-quarter of an hour a transport plane landed and disgorged its passengers before taking off again within twenty minutes. Tomorrow the first of the bulk transport airships that had been repurposed as personnel lifters would arrive from the outlying settlements.
    Eulenburg was watching the picture from a high-powered telescope that was now directed at Baden. A single small cruiser, likely part of the security perimeter, could be seen with Baden’s asteroid visible beyond. Then abruptly another ship appeared in a flash close to the first. The Battle Fleet ship tried to respond but the surprise was complete. There was a collective groan in Four C as the new arrival launched a salvo of missiles.
    “ This is Harbinger. I am under attack by a Nameless ship! ” The voice transmission took everyone by surprise. It was a woman’s voice and from the fear in it everyone knew that nine hours before the speaker had known she was about to die. “ Repeat, this is Harbinger. I am under attack by a Nameless …”
    On the screen the cruiser disappeared in a flash as its reactors breached. The alien ship that had just killed it, turned and accelerated toward Baden.
    The bulk of Baden’s asteroid screened them from the worst of the slaughter but it did nothing to block the radio chatter. Much of it was garbled as dozens of voices shouted across the same radio bands. They heard Admiral Camile, trapped away from his flagship, attempt to organise the defence. And fail. The number of separate transmissions dropped as ships died. Twenty-five minutes after the start of the battle someone on Baden thought the unthinkable.
    “… on Baden … base lost … ships are to scatter … ke your way to Earth at … t speed. ”
    From behind Baden Battle Fleet ships appeared as they ran for their lives. Several were cut down as they tried to escape. Others made it. Another thirty minutes and it was all over, only the triumphant Nameless remained and silence returned to Four C.
    Some of those present looked to Eulenburg, expecting him to speak. But sickened by what he’d seen, he had nothing to offer. It was left to Chevalier to climb onto a chair. The Brigadier did his best and his speech contained all the right elements: that they were ready, that they could count on one another, that unlike the Third Fleet they would not be taken by surprise. Yet it still fell flat. Everyone had just seen their first and best line of defence swept away and in all likelihood they were next.
    ___________________________
     
    27 th July 2066
     
    The days in the shelters were long, the nights restless. There was no soundproofing on the cave walls so every noise echoed and reverberated. Heaters had been brought in but somehow they only helped you appreciate how cold it was down here deep in the ground. Alice wasn’t really sure any more how long they’d been there. She probably could have worked it out. Her twenty-four hour watch was slipping behind Landfall ’ s twenty-eight and a half hour rotation by a consistent amount, but the calculation got longer each day and increasingly didn ’ t seem worth the bother. The