Pan turned toward the sound of Jack's voice but did not quit get lined up. "Please pardon me Captain. I did not understand."
The ensign jabbed Jack in the ribs. "I am sorry Pan but it was a comment, meant for me about his inability to see as good as I can in the dark. And all the live hot Berserker Apes up on the boat deck running around and the lack of live Apes down here on these decks. If Captain Jack can stop gawking he just may notice that something down here is killing the Black Berserker Apes."
Jack looked at her then up at what she was talking about on the boat deck. Then looking around at the bright beacons of the sick dying Apes scattered across the decks around them he realized the Ensign was wright. Something was terribly wrong. His gaze drifted back into the brightly lit with body heat Corridor they were in and suddenly jerked back to the Red Apes that were with them. Their bodies were a lot hotter than normal and their brains where almost beacons. "Shit! Gutner Dank. You need to get the hell out of here now." The Ape looked at Jacks sound in the dark with a baffled expression Jack could clearly see. "There is something on this deck killing you and the other Red Apes. All you Red Apes have to leave this deck immediately or you are going to die. Now get out. Go!" Jack hit his Comm as the hatch was thrown open and the Apes started out. "All B Company Red Apes are to immediately evacuate this deck immediately to the transports to be taken up to the boat deck. No exceptions. There is something poisoning all the apes on this deck. Move it people. Get the Transports back at the landing zone to pick them up." Hitting the Comm again. "Doctor, the Apes are being killed down her on the Power Core Deck at an incredible faster rate than the berserker Apes above. Most all of the Black Apes down here are already dead with the few exceptions that must be late arrivals. I think it is some kind of radiation since we are at the power core but that is only a guess. I need you to check it out and see what you can do for the Apes I had down here with me for some kind of poisoning." Jack watched the stream of Apes headed back for the transports as the first transport pulled up to the back of the transport serving as a dock.
"Captain, I have one of their Doctors here and he says that he has treatments for radiation poisoning for the Apes. Are you sure? The doctor says the Apes are immune to low levels of radiation poisoning and that if the radiation is powerful enough to kill the Apes you should already be dead. He would like to come down and investigate other causes."
Jack closed the end hatch plunging the Corridor back into darkness. "Fine. He can come down and investigate all he wants but I know withholding rapid treatment, radiation poisoning can result in the antidote being worthless. I want my Apes treated now and if I am wrong they can blame me for the unneeded pain, but at least they will be alive. As for us, we are not getting any readings of radiation from our suits and we are not showing any side effects or signs of poisoning of any kind. Yet I can see the Red Apes dying all over this deck with hundreds of undamaged corpses everywhere we go and only on the decks around the power core. The body temperatures of the Red Apes up on the other decks look normal. Is it possible that the berserker apes got a high dose of radiation to help make them berserkers? We will have to check their hibernation capsules for radiation emitters when we get the time."
Looking around he finally spotted what he was looking for and smiled. Throwing the hatch open he started down the corridor and turned into the nearest passageway to the first ladder and headed up.
Stopping after going through the next hatch up Jack turned around wondering if Pan could climb only to watch her guiding herself up the ladder through the hatch with her arms. His eyes telling him that the gravcoil in her tub was doing most of the work, with her hands mostly guiding it. Jumping onto the ladder again, he headed on up until he got to the level he wanted. Then jogged down several passageways and into a dead end side passageway to a maintenance hatch in the deck next to a 10 foot wide bundle of pipes and cables running from the overhead down through the thick armored deck. Jack waited for Pan and the Ensign to catch up to him as he first tried to see the deck below but the armor was too thick. He then examined the pieces of junk scattered around the compartment and down the passageway. Junk and trash left behind anytime a large number of people go anyplace in a hurry especially if it is through cramped spaces.
Pan came up to him frowning. "Why do you rush so fast to get here and then stop Captain?"
Jack smiled. "Because if I open that hatch I will probably get shot. You won't." Frowning suddenly. “At least I hope not.”
The Ensign picked up a child's toy stuffed animal that did not look like anything a human would play with. "I can't see through the thick armor Captain but you have to be right. It looks like a lot of refugees went down that hole."
Pan looked back and forth between them. "Why would they go down into the Power Core? Especially through this hatch."
Jack chuckled. "Well I don't know. Why don't you open up the hatch and ask them." Though I don't think it is big enough for Bigfoots but then I have not seen any Bigfoot bodies around thank God. But then I have not seen that many slave bodies around either. Just hundreds of dead Crazy Apes." Looking at Pans baffled expression, Jack shook his head and stopped talking as he spotted a comm port next to the hatch. "Pan! Use the Comm port. Your communicator should work on it."
Pan looked down at the hatch and the comm port scabbed on the back side of it Jack had pointed at. Taking out her little hand held tablet she had used so much since Jack had first met her, she took a plug out of the bottom and shoved it into the port and God speak started blasting from her comm.
Pan practically screamed back for a few seconds to make herself heard and then stopped as the 3 foot wide by 6 foot thick hatch slammed up out of the deck into a recess in the overhead. A head peeked out of the opening. Seeing Pan, it started speaking until it saw Jack and the Ensign. Silence filled the little compartment as it looked around them and down the passageway with obvious terror plastered across the strange face as it stared at Jack only feet away.
Pan started talking again motioning toward Jack and then the Ensign.
The creature started speaking again as terror left its face and then disappeared down the hole.
Pan slid over to it and let herself down the hole until only her head was showing. "Come Captain, Ensign. They want to meet you." Seeing Jacks baffled look. "The survivors Captain. They have heard about you and want to meet you while they wait for the Berserkers to finish dying."
"Hold on here for a second. The slaves are safe and they are not going to blow up the ship and the Berserker Apes will die on their own shortly?"
"Ah yes Captain. Die eventually though it may take another month or two for them all to die. I believe that is what the Munchkin said."
Shaking his head in disbelief he tapped his comm. "Major. Pull all the forces off the ship immediately. I have found the slaves and we do not have to worry about their safety or them blowing up the ship at the moment and I don't want any more of our troops killed just to kill the damn berserkers that are already dead but just don’t know it yet."
"You have got to be fricking kidding Captain. I finely have enough troops with the Red Apes you sent up to kick berserker butt and you want me to leave?"
"Yes Major. That is an order and that goes for everyone including the Red Apes. Not one Red Ape's life is worth an honorable death for all the thousands of berserkers left alive. Now do it. Out." Hitting his local B-Company comm. "Nanuke, I don't know if the radiation killing the Apes is deadly to humans or not, but just in case pull your marines back to the transport behind shielding. I need just one Heavy Armored fire team at my location to serve as a hatch guard and comm relay. ASAP. You can relieve them every half hour just to make sure no one gets too high a dosage with reinforcements ready on 30 seconds notice. Out."
Turning to the Ensign. "Stay here guarding this hatch until the fire team arrives, then you can join me down below. We have a lot of questions that need answered." Jack started down the hatch in the deck and stopped as the Ensign stood staring at him
pouting with her back to the passageway's entrance. Her weapon still on her back. Jack stared at her for several seconds waiting for her to comply.
The Ensign smiled down at Jack. "The Admiral ordered me to stay close to you. You don't know what is down there. It could be a trap." She said impatiently as she waited for Jack to get out of her way.
"Ensign, take your weapon off your back. Lay down behind the shallow hatch trunk there." Jack pointed behind the hatch combing. "So you have some protection. Point your frigging weapon down the passageway with the safety off and your finger on the trigger, so you can kill anything that comes down that passageway that is not human, before it fricking kills you." Jack was getting pissed. "The smell coming out of this hatch stinks to me. I imagine it will stink to the Berserkers if it gets that far up ship and lead them straight here. Now take up the fricking guard post until relieved and that is an order Ensign! Now! Before I drop down.” Jack stared at her grim faced. “Make sure you contact me before you come down just in case it is a trap, so you can bring reinforcements. Got it?"
Her expression turned pissed as she took her weapon off her back and stepped behind the hatches raised combing and laid down with her weapon pointed down the passageway. "There, Sir. That good enough for you? Sir?"
Jack looked at her pissed off expression knowing he was going to pay for it later no matter how much she said she loved him, but it was about time she learned orders were orders and they both were still in the Navy and troops die when orders are not followed. Jack counted to 5. "Drop you weapons bipod, close your damn helmet, take your weapons safety off, put your Godstar damn finger on the fricking trigger, keep your eyes glued on your assigned guard area and don't take them off of it until you are relieved. Or do I have to bust you down to recruit and send you back to basic bootship training."
"I am an officer damn it." She said tight lipped. Pissed starting to turn to hate for being treated like a damn recruit.
"And you are the only other body here besides me right now and you like any other officer including me, will perform the tasks needed to insure the completion of the mission, no matter what the Frick they are. And right now that requires you to be a fricking guard while I go down and make sure some scarred shitless moron does not have its finger hovering over the ships self-destruct button waiting to accidentally push it simply because someone farts. Now do your Godstar Damn Duty properly Ensign, so the whole Godstar attack force can stay alive as well." Staring into her hateful, pissed eyes for a second. "And Change that damn attitude fast or I am transferring you off my ship.” Jack was getting really pissed. “Outside the damn Cabin, you are still just a crewman and if you can't follow orders because you think you are too good or once out ranked me or you think you are special and don't need to, you can move back to your own Cabin got it. I lived without you around for too many years to let you treat me like you have a corn cob shoved up your ass and don't need to follow orders, risking the lives of everyone." Staring into her eyes. "Now Ensign."
She finely looked away focusing on the guard area. She adjusted the bipod and placed her body so the weapon could cover the entire entrance of the passageway while staying hidden, placed her left hand over the butt of the weapon to pull and hold it firmly into her should so she could maintain control at full auto, the safety off and her finger on the trigger and froze in place. She had spent many hours frozen in just such a position on duty in basic training guarding an area. She knew how to do it. She just did not think she would ever have to do it again. Taking a deep breath she wanted to scream at him but decided he was right and said. "Guarding the passageway until relieved Captain Sir." Taking a breath she bit her lip, then. "I will call you as soon as my relief arrives sir." She said in as normal a voice as she could muster. Doing her best to keep out the hate and sarcasm.
Jack dropped down the hatch without saying a word.
She could not believe what had gotten into her. She was a phycology major with several degrees and yet she had let herself fall into the common trap of thinking the rules did not apply to her simply because she was the Captains girlfriend, lover. She had even started thinking that she deserved promotion to lieutenant even though she still had not finished the requirements. But then Jack had gone from Non-commissioned Petty Officer to Captain of his own ship in only a couple of months. Why should she have to worry about requirements? But then he had more than fulfilled all the requirements including time in grade after spending most of a decade in The Battleship Training Virtual Reality Game that had been leaked to the general populace across the Republic. While she had spent some time in The Game trying her best to kill Jack at every opportunity, it was her Collage degrees that had earned her the Officer’s Bars. She had been made an Officer after Bootship because of her accredited college degrees while Jack‘s many degrees had been from cheaper none military accredited collages saving what his parents thought was an extravagant cost for a child they expect to drop dead any day. The fact that his Grandfather (everyone called Pop) was a Genius and was once head of the Republic’s Research Directorate did not even help. But then in time of war some rules got thrown out. All she had to do was take care of the basics that combat depended on and that one was passing the damn pilot exams. Which Jack had done with ease while she was struggling? Up until then she had considered Jack and her to be almost twins the way they had grown up.
Both Jack and the Ensign where the only surviving children of 23 children born during Jack’s family’s Trampship’s (the Turner Joy) year stranded in a neutron star system. Common knowledge said that neutron babies were handicapped, retarded and did not survive long after birth which was true for the other 21 babies that had been born while the ship was in the system. All but she and Jack had died over the next several years after the ship got out of the system. To the heart break of many of the ship’s parents (most of the ship resenting the only 2 kids that did not die). Most of the crew and Jack’s parents taking it for granted that Jack not only would die but was retarded while treating him so.
Expected to die soon, they had been left alone and ignored by all except the Ensigns parents who took Jack in as his parent were too busy saving the ship to care for a baby that was doomed to die. Jack and the ensign had grown with the ability to see what others could not while being ignored until they were 6 years old and then separated for reasons neither understood. Then Jack was disciplined whenever he had said anything about seeing through walls and decks or acted to that affect as he was growing up forcing him to subconsciously ignore the fact while the Ensign’s parents had accepted the games their daughter had played even though they had though it was only her imagination. They were much too happy to spend what little time they had with her before she to eventually died. But both Jack and the Ensign flourished though Jack had been treated like a slave by his older brother as his parents were much too busy as the Ship’s Captain and Executive Officer to worry let alone get close to a child that they expected to die any day. Even after 18 years.
Jack had run away and joined the Navy and finally realized only months before with the Ensign’s exasperated help, that others could not see what both her and he saw and took for granted. Just in time to save the ship and the fleet from total destruction in a rapidly approaching nebula while piloting the lead ship in the small fleet of armed transports running for their lives.
Jack had been a mere Gravity Coil Tech a few weeks before that. He had spent the previous boring year working on recertifying his college degrees by taking the final tests of all the college courses from his years of studies as his tramp ship plied its way across the stars. Then one day he had been brought to the bridge to learn how to trouble shoot a gravity coil problem that he salved in seconds and he noticed the enemy ships on the screen showing the feed from one of the reconnaissance drones sent out ahead of the fleet. His training from his Grandfather (Retired head of the Republic’s Central Research Institute and designer of the Republic’s existing space drive engines) had made him realize within only a few secon
ds that the enemy not only had more advanced Propulsion engines for their ships allowing them to easily out run anything the Republic had but that the Republic Navy could upgrade their own ship propulsion engines to be better than the Spiders. That is if the fleet survived long enough.
Jack had not only proceeded to design new engines but went on to pass all the physical and mental tests the Fleet’s Admiral could give him allowing him to rapidly advance in a rapidly expanding Navy that was building ships faster than they could train crews for, including Officers. Then the battle of all battles had left Jack in command of a wreck of a ship simply because he was the only officer on the Red Pepper at the time with orders to simply take it and its few surviving crewmen back to the Rock for repairs. Only to wind up in even more battles and a ship load of refugees and examples of the Spider’s incredibly advanced technologies.
A distant boom echoed down the passageway getting the Ensign’s attention. "What the hell was that?" Frowning. Nothing she needed to worry about she thought, too far away. Glancing briefly at the hatch and then back at the passageway. No, Jack was now a temporary Captain while she was still a damn Ensign. But then Jack had been playing The Game since he was 6 come to think of it. Well a simplified version back then. She had played it with him, with his grandfather (Pop) looking on and helping them once in a while. Even though like most kids at that age, they knew it all and didn't think they needed help with a billion credit game given away for free, that knew how to keep the interest of its players while teaching them the basics, even kids. Then as the kids grew, so did the complexity and intensity of The Battleship Crewmen Training Game. Though then she discovered boys and the attention her developing breasts got her and left the game for more interesting pursuits. Boys.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 5
