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

to the ship.”
    “Well, get yourself back on board, Chief,” Crowe replied. “I have to give you all a briefing.”
    “Yes, sir,” the Chief replied, turning away from the viewing port just in time to miss the first of three structures being swung into place over the cruiser’s drive section.
    Deimos ’s wardroom was only big enough to just about accommodate all of her officers. Some had been with the ship since before Crowe took command. Others had arrived as replacements for those killed, wounded or in all too few cases, transferred off. But as a pair of ratings set up a holo projector, it struck Crowe that this ship – his ship – had developed an oddly unique esprit de corps in the form of a weary resignation that whatever was about to hit the fan, they’d be in the middle of it and, at the same time, a confidence that they’d come out the far side.
    “Gentlemen, we’ve received our assignment for the coming engagement,” Crowe started, “and I will admit it is not what any of us are expecting.
    He turned on the holo projector. It showed Deimos herself, as she would appear once the dockyard workers were done.
    “What in hell’s name?” exclaimed Lieutenant Colwell from the back as a general mutter went round the room.
    Crowe couldn’t blame them. Three spindly legs were mounted at one hundred and twenty degrees to each other, at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the ship. They gave the ship a landing platform, which would allow the cruiser to stand upright on her tail. But it looked like the ship had been forcibly crossbred with an old Apollo moon lander.
    “Quiet please. As you will have figured out, our mission will be unorthodox. We have been assigned to a new force to be designated as the Fast Division. It will consist of our own ship, the Warspite and the heavy cruisers De Gaulle , Churchill , Michael Collins , Hades , Hermes and Athena . As soon as our new struts are complete, we will break Earth orbit and head for the Martian moon of Phobos. Once there, we will land on the surface of the moon.”
    There was another babble of voices. This time Crowe let them continue for several moments before rapping on the table.
    “We will land there, secure ourselves, power down and make sufficient arrangements to allow us to dump our remaining waste heat into the surface of the moon.”
    “What on Earth is the purpose of this, sir?” asked Commander Bhudraja.
    “We are the counter attack element. If or when the Nameless make a move against either Earth or Saturn, our job will be to jump in behind them and pin them inside a mass shadow until the rest of the fleet can join us. We will be the cork in the bottle. Our role is obvious – we are here to protect the other seven ships during the run into plasma cannon range.”
    “Eight ships versus a fleet?” asked the gunner.
    “Eight good ships,” Crowe replied.
    “More like seven plus us,” Colwell said. “No one has ever landed a starship the size of Deimos ! Not even on a low gravity moon!”
    “Gentlemen,” Crowe interrupted, frowning at Colwell as he did so, “we can stop the debate right here. The bottom line is we have been given our orders. Headquarters thinks this is our best shot at getting a force into gun range, so that’s what we will do.”
    “There are no existing navigational system programmes to allow for landing,” Colwell said unhappily.
    “Headquarter has promised landing programmes for the helm, but frankly we aren’t counting on that. So you and the helmsman have two days to come up with some,” Crowe replied.
    “What about our aft firing arcs?” the gunner asked. “Those legs will block our firing astern. How can we remove them once we’ve taken off again?”
    “We’re being supplied with shaped charges to fit once we’ve landed. Those should be able to remove them. But as a redundancy, we are being supplied with a half dozen rounds for the flak guns, which will be solid shot rather than