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

fighters formed up and landed, it was all pretty smooth but then a pilot who couldn’t land on a carrier that was neither manoeuvring nor accelerating, had no place in a Raven. In turn, each fighter docked with an armature and was drawn into the hangar.
    “Too slow, too damn slow,” Dati snarled. “We could have been hit by a dozen missiles in the time it has taken to get them in.”
    “Early days, Commander,” Durane replied calmly. “Nothing is perfect from the first.”
    “Yes sir,” Dati replied coldly before turning to Alanna and Udaltsov. “You have your assignments, now get down there and take command.”
     
    Schurenhofer had corralled the three newly arrived crews and herded them to a briefing room. Alanna paused on the threshold, remembering the day she had arrived on the old Dauntless in the last days of peace. New pilots on their first starship, they’d been like children on a school trip and she’d dreaded seeing that again. But as she walked into the briefing room, that dread, along with any sense of familiarity, faded away. These weren’t pilots expecting to serve in a fleet at peace. They knew exactly what they were getting into. The atmosphere was funereal and she felt herself relax.
    Alanna nodded to Schurenhofer.
    “Attention on deck!” Schurenhofer barked. Everyone snapped sharply to attention as Alanna walked slowly to the head of the room and looked around.
    “My name is Lieutenant Commander Alanna Shermer. I am the only survivor of the last Dauntless and I am your new flight leader. My job here is to keep you alive long enough for you to learn how to do yours.”

 
    Chapter Four
    Farwell to Convention
     
    20th November 2067  
     
    Ship Senior Oadra paced slowly around the bridge of the Aèllr cruiser. The normally busy corridors of the great ship were almost deserted. With all non-essential crewmembers landed, now all that remained on the ship was a small diplomatic detail, those needed to navigate, to maintain and if it came to it – fight. That last part was what frightened Oadra and if she was any judge, also most of her crew. She turned back towards the main command display. There was little to see, just an ancient star, three worthless planets… and a human starship. No, not a starship, a warship , and not just any ship. Oadra recognised it immediately. Decades previously, during the war between Earth and the Aèllr, that very vessel had hunted the space lanes of the Confederacy. Now it was silent, dark and, like Oadra, waiting.
    On the display another indicator appeared, a starship jumping in. Alarm rippled around the bridge. 
    “Senior, a vessel has transited inwards. It is human, a diplomatic vessel.”
    “Senior,” a communication operative said quietly behind Oadra, “the diplomatic vessel has signalled us.”
    The operative passed over a computer pad.
    “Senior, the human warship, it is activating its engines,” called out a sensor operative. “It is moving away.”
    The warship had accomplished its role, demarking a border that had now, perhaps, ceased to be.
    Oadra read the signal. It was as she had expected and dreaded. She reread the last line, irrationally hoping it would somehow change. But no, it continued to read ‘follow me.’
    “Helm, bring us in astern of the diplomatic ship.”
    Oadra looked around her bridge and smiled weakly.
    “Communications, dispatch a drone to Laibris Base, inform them we are en route to Earth.”
    ___________________________
     
    27th November 2067  
     
    The magnetic surface in the heels of Admiral Lewis’s boots made a tap-tap sound as he strode down the hospital corridor. His brow was furrowed as his mind worked. Turning into one of the wards, he nodded to the duty nurse. By unwritten rule, rank was largely in abeyance here on wards. While none of the patients in the corridor saluted, those who saw him still straightened into as close to attention as they could manage. Lewis nodded to individual men and women but