Free The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) by Edmond Barrett

all gentlemen. You are both dismissed.”
     
    The two Admirals lingered for a few moments outside Wingate’s office before, by unspoken agreement, they headed towards the Flag Officers restaurant. Fengzi irritably waved away one of the service staff as he sat down heavily.
    “Subordinate species,” he muttered, shaking his head. “To even think it makes me gag. Why did we even bother all those years ago just to roll over now? God damn gutless worms of politicians!”
    “It puts the human race’s eggs in more than one basket,” Lewis said. “Not a bad plan as far as it goes.”
    “Except it depends on the goodwill of people who don’t have much reason to have any towards us!” Fengzi observed darkly, before shaking his head again. “To have come to this!”
    The two sat in silence for a while.
    “How is the latest set of tactical simulations looking?” Lewis eventually asked.
    “Every damn thing we can think of has been tried,” Fengzi replied. “While some aspects get good results, the overall ratio of our losses to theirs is still coming up short – Far too short. I mean we have some things going for us. In as near as we can tell, they can only jump within a solar system. So they can’t hide their support ships outside the system. Also, since the Nameless ships have to be close to stationary to jump, if we get into gun range we could knock them off like ducks in a row. Problem is there just doesn’t seem to be a way to manoeuvre the fleet into contact without them seeing us coming. Even getting from the highest orbit to the edge of Earth’s mass shadow takes too damn long.”
    The both lapsed back into silence, each man lost in his own thoughts.
    “Why an entire fleet?” Lewis murmured.
    “What?”
    “Why are we thinking about getting the entire fleet in,” Lewis said in a still distant tone. “Get into gun range and even a small force could inflict disproportionate damage.”
    “Because there is no material difference between getting a small fast force in or a larger slower one. Plus, if they didn’t get into gun range, then they’d be overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, there is a role for detached elements – most of the carriers can be more productive carrying out hit and runs from the edge of the solar system than they would be sat in Earth orbit.”
    Lewis was still staring into the middle distance and it was doubtful whether he had even heard Fengzi.
    “The Nameless cap ship missiles can fire from over a light second out, but to put in serious weight of fire, they have to get within three quarters of a light second of the target so they can use the smaller dual-purpose missiles. So to put in an assault against Earth, they have to get inside the mass shadow.”
    “Which still gives them a margin of a good quarter of a light second to play with,” Fengzi said. “If we try to move towards them, then they can slow down fast enough to be able to jump away before we reach gun range.”
    “Not if something bottles them up. If by the time they know they’re in contact they’re already under fire, then even if our force is only a few ships we could inflict major casualties on them. They have to come to a near halt and become sitting ducks, as you put it, or try to run in real space, where they possess no acceleration advantage and we could chase them down.”
    “Yes, yes! That’s all lovely but we’ve looked at this!” Fengzi replied in exasperation. “The only ships we can reasonably expect to get to gun range are fighters and strike boats. Even with them the only ones to get there will be from our carriers operating from beyond the heliopause. If we used all our carriers, that gives us only six squadrons of space fighters and two dozen strike boats. Even if we got them into position, they could not hold! The Nameless would push them aside, not without loss to themselves, but not enough loss!”
    “Then we need something more substantial than fighters. A fast division of line