“How are our temperatures Custern. Will she hold together the 6 hours it will take to get through the cloud?”
“Trying to compute that know Captain. It all depends on how dense the cloud stays. We at least are not losing reaction mass. We are scooping up more than we are using as thick as the cloud is. Fact is I am having to dump most of what the scoops are bringing in sir.”
Jack looked over at the nearest fighter blob and noticed that he could see its buzzard coils energy cone sucking in the cloud. He could see the density of the cloud increasing as the fighter/bomber pulled in the particles from a mile around it and realized that only a small fraction was being pulled into the engine scoops themselves. The rest of the compressed cone of particles was zipping past and hitting the fighter itself at several times the density of the surrounding cloud. In fact the buzzard coils were creating a vacuum from the outer edge of the cone a mile away where it was grabbing particles to within less than a hundred feet of the fighter/bomber where the cone’s particle density was several time what the rest of the cloud was at as it hit the fighter.
Swallowing Jack opened his mouth trying not to sound crazy. “Custern. Cut the Buzzard coils.”
“What sir? Captain did you say turn off the Scoops? I know my first calculations show that we will burn up long before we reach open space but give me a minute to check my calculations sir.”
“Cut the coils Custern, I think it is concentrating the cloud density hitting the ship.”
The coils went dark and the ionized fireball surrounding the ship was cut by more than half.
“God star Captain. We can easily make open space now. I think we can even speed up a bit. Just give me time to do the math sir.”
“Don’t get in a hurry with the math. Can you tune the Buzzard cones, narrowing them to just in front of the bomber?”
“Aaa, yes sir. How narrow do you want it to be?”
“Let’s try a couple hundred feet wide and see what happens.”
“Yes sir just give me a minute to program the changes.”
Jack looked over at the 11 funnels with fireballs at the narrow point surrounding the ship. And shook his head. He tapped his comm panel for the flight. “Red leader to Red flight, cut your Buzzard coils now. Cut your Buzzard coils now.” But the other ships continued as bright as before with their cones reaching out miles ahead of the fighters. Their superheated ionized halos blocking out all transmissions.
“I have them matched and focused at the lower power sir. I think Captain. Number 2 did not want to settle in with the other. Energizing now.”
The coils came on as Jack watched the cone form ahead of them and suddenly the bow of the ship started heating up into the red. Material started sloughing off back around the canopy.
“Cut the coils Custern! Cut the coils!”
The fire storm was cut off with the light halo returning.
“I don’t understand Captain. Only the nose shield heated up. The wings and engine inlets went into a vacuum. We weren’t picking up enough mass particles to say so let alone feed the engines. It was like the bow had hit a wall sir.”
“Yes it did didn’t it.” Jack frowned thinking to himself. “Each engine has its own Buzzard coils and you have to tune them to the same frequencies and power level to create the scoop cone with the ship at the center.” Jack suddenly smiled. “Custern, tune the coils in each nestle to different frequencies separating them so they will create their own scoop cones centered on each set of engines instead of one large cone centered on the ship.”
“Yes that makes sense Captain. While cruising in the stratosphere of a planet waiting to attack, all we need is to increase the gas concentration for the engines. We aren’t going fast enough to worry about friction.” The engineer worked at his console for a good minute before he turned back to Jack. “Got it Captain. Ready sir.”
“Well switch it on Mr. Custern.”
The fighter-bomber started bucking and swinging from one side to the other no matter what Jack did trying to control the ship. “Custern! What is going on? What did you do?” Then Jack saw the cones far out in front of them wiggling back and forth across the front of the ship bouncing off of each other as they tried to center over their set of engines only to bounce off the other cones to be thrown out at odd angles to snake around and back to do it all over again. Pulling the ship one way and then another.
“Nothing I seem to do helps except to make it worse Captain.”
“Aaa Jack watched the cones snaking around bouncing off of each other and suddenly remembered all it took for him to finally salve the main engine Problem on the Red Pepper was switching polarity on the odd drive coils so they were not multiplying their power into proto Blackhole’s. Only Jack had not realized the fix until after a lot of people had died. “Custern, reverse polarities on one set of the Buzzard coils. Unlike poles attract. The negatively charged cone should attract the positively charged cone locking them together without merging them.”
“Yes sir. Makes sense to me. Doing it now just give me a few seconds and…”
The ship stopped bucking as the two cones suddenly kissed locking the edges of their rims together far out in front of the ship. Only the touching edges left wisps of material slipping past the small space between them as their circular cones separated from one another letting a thin stream of cloud material swirling around in vortexes hitting the bow of the ship and even occasionally drifting out across the rest of the wings and canopy. Making the ship buck and jerk as the turbulence hit the ship form one side and then the other. Jack frowned for a few seconds as Custern and Jack were jerked back and forth unpredictably. The last thing he needed was to get space sick. He would never live it down. “Mr. Custern try closing the frequencies of the cones without matching them and see what happens. We need them to overlap a little without combining into one hug cone with the whole ship at the center.”
“Giving it a try Captain but I don’t see how that will work. The frequencies match or they don’t.”
Suddenly the ship stopped bucking as they entered a full vacuum of the lee side of two overlapping cones. The hull temperatures on the leading edges and bow of the ship dropping rapidly.
The acceleration of the ship increased dramatically without the drag of hitting a gas wall. Jack looked around as the fiery blobs of the other ships rapidly slid back behind them. Pulling back on the throttles Jack had to reduce power significantly before they started catching back up to them. “Custern see if you can get a beam through the damn ionization around the closest ship and tell them what we have done.”
“Good idea Captain. At this speed they will burn up long before they get to clear space.”
Jack listened to Custern transmitting trying to punch a message through to the nearest ship without any apparent success as the ships kept ramming themselves through the cloud with their engines at full throttle.
“Damn it Custern. They have to have run the damn numbers by know. Why aren’t they at least slowing down?”
Custern seemed to cough getting Jack’s attention.
Jack turned around to look over his shoulder at the Ape. The crewman Apes (Gronks) were smaller than the battle Apes but they were still big by human standards. “What is it Custern?”
The Gronk frowned and seemed to think for a few seconds then. “Your little speech Captain. You said we had to get across to open space as fast as we could or we could lose the war. Most of the pilots will accept their deaths if they have even a chance at getting through and would not even think of not following your orders.”
“My Godstar man. They have to have a little common sense and know that it is better to get there late than not at all.”
“Maybe some now that we are not under God Officer Control but most are not.”
Jack turned to look down the line of fireballs streaking through the cloud kicking himself for even thinking of taking anyone along with him even though he knew one ship did not stand a chance against the well-armed currier ship if
they did find it.
Then one of the fireballs suddenly dropped out of formation falling back as its ball of plasma grew smaller. Jack pulled his throttles almost completely off as he stayed with the fighter hoping it would stop so he could tell them the proper way to run their Buzzard Scoops. But it only slowed down and did not stop.
“I think it is slow enough now Captain to make it through the cloud though it is going to take them 12 hours to do it.”
“See if you can get through their ionized plasma now Custern. Punch a hole at full power if you have to.” Jack watched another fireball start to slow and then another. Breathing a sigh of relief that they were starting to understand what was needed.
Then looking at the screen showing the direction they had come from where the station was even though it was far out of sight. “See if you can punch a comm through to the Spider ship and Combat Command and tell them how the bombers can operate in the cloud. Hopefully the fighters with only one engine aren’t having this problem.”
“I have already tried getting the ship on the Comm Captain and no go. They are out of range. Permission to drop a Message Torpedo with our findings Sir.”
“What? We have message torpedoes? I completely forgot about them. Damn, what else have I forgotten in my hurry to get after that damn currier ship?” Shaking his head he watched another fighter/bomber start to slow down in the distance as its huge flaming ball suddenly reduced in size. That meant half the fighter/bombers had slowed down Jack noticed. “Yes Custern, send one off with a request to send a transport out to pick up the survivors when they finally burn through all their shielding. Though by then they will burn up from simply going to fast through the cloud without power for their shields.”
“Message torpedo away Captain and I still cannot get through the ionization but at least they will make it through the cloud.”
Shaking his head Jack advanced the throttles leaving almost half the squadron behind as he passed some of the more resent stragglers that had slowed down. Though that left 5 still pushing huge fireballs racing ahead. Jack quickly caught up to them as another fireball dimmed and started falling behind leaving only 4. Jack started to hope that they all would succumb to common sense and slow down but after another hour without any sign of any of the 4 slowing Jack decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Custern, I am going to try to come up beside one of the ships letting our cones shield it from the cloud long enough to get a message with the new Buzzard protocols through. Be ready. I don’t know how long we will be able to hold it. I don’t know how our two sets of coils are going to react to one another.”
The Gronk swallowed. “Not very well at all Captain.”
Jack slid up beside the closest fighter/bomber but when their Buzzard Cones touched, all hell broke loose as the two sets of off frequency cones repelled each other sending the two ships careening away. Knocking out the Buzzard coil for the engine that happen to be closest to the more powerful single Buzzard cone on the other Fighter/bomber.
“Port side Coils are down Captain. Luckily the Starboard side coils are still providing some protection by themselves so we are still in a vacuum. I am trying to restart the Portside Coils now. Hopefully just the breakers were punched. Port side engine is on internal reaction mass.” Custern fingers ran across the console for several seconds and then. “Yes Captain, the breakers seem ok but we won’t know for sure until they cool down enough to reset. Aaa, Sir. Let’s not try that one again.”
Shaking his head as he watched the fighter/bomber they had almost collided with straighten out and continue ahead as if nothing had happened. “I am going to try getting ahead and backing down through the center of their cone. Try to match the frequencies Custern. We have to find a way to keep them from killing themselves.”
“Yes sir but I don’t like it. If I am off even a bit we could destroy both ships coils Captain.”
“Then don’t be off.” Jack slid up in front of the other fighter/bomber and started backing down the middle of the cone making sure his exhaust was well off to one side of the other Fighter/bomber. But then the force of the other ships coils started dragging Jack’s Fighter/bomber toward the center of the cone and the other ship. Jack had to finally turn his boat sideways piercing the other cone as the two fighter/bomber boats rapidly approached each other.
As soon as Jacks Fighter/bomber hit the other boat’s cone the already weakened breakers on the Port Side coils popped followed a fraction of a second later by the Starboard coils leaving the ship completely unprotected as Jack fought to keep from hitting the other boat as its buzzard coils still at full power tried to suck them into the center of the cone. Not being able to pull away with the cloud particles helping push them toward the other boat, Jack flipped his fighter/bomber around and headed directly for the other boat.
Jack was sure he waited too long as he pulled up crossing in front of the other fighter/bomber boat and penetrate the wall of the other boat’s cone to disappear behind the fighter/bomber that quickly accelerated away as if nothing had happened. The plasma bubble around the other fighter/bomber boat keeping it from seeing Jack’s fighter/bomber though the mass sensors should have picked something up Jack would have thought. But then the crew could have just thought Jack’s boat was just a big rock they had luckily missed.
Fighting to regain control as the cloud tried to tear his boat apart as they tumbled. The thin cloud hitting the sides and back of the boat at a hundred thousand miles an hour.
Jack finally was able to turn into the onrushing cloud letting the armored bow and leading edges of the wings take the heat of the cloud particles they were hitting. Alarms all over the cockpit and engineering console screaming in their ears.
With the boat stabilized into the wind of the cloud. Custern and Jack were able to slowly get the systems back on line including the Buzzard Coils after some 15 minutes of hair raising work. Even the slower section of the squadron having passed them without noticing them.
With the boat in the vacuum of the Buzzard coils again Jack pushed the throttles back up and the boat started quickly catching up to the trailing section of fighter/bombers. Taking a deep breath. “Let’s not try that again.”
Custern glanced at Jack and went back to checking systems for damage.
Catching up to the lead section of huge bright fireballs Jack wracked his mind for some way to stop them since he could not communicate with them. “Now what do we do since we can’t communicate with them?” Jack said allowed.
Custern looked over at Jack and said. “I think I could shoot their engines out with our tail defense guns. I can back off the power of the 21 millimeter guns so they won’t do too much damage. They may even be able to get them going again with backup systems but we should have time to at least slide in using our coils to protect them in our vacuum while everything is down and talk to them first.”
“Good thinking Custern.” Jack aimed for the closest boat as they approached the lead group. “You had better back off on our cones power as much as possible so we can get as close as possible.”
“Backing off now sir.” The fighter/bomber’s hull temperature started climbing and then stabilized without creating an ionized ball around the ship. “Got it at minimum now sir.”
“Good going Mr. Custern. That should get us within a mile of them. You shouldn’t have any problem knocking out their engines… No. let’s try communicating with them one last time. Use your guns to send them Morris Code.” Jack suddenly realized that he could not think of an equivalent communication system as simple as Morris code for the Gronks.
“Morris Code Captain?”
“Aaa yes, it is an ancient form of computer language before computers had been invented that humans used and still use in emergencies like this. It uses a bunch of dots and dashes to communicate words.” Looking over his shoulder at Custern. “You would not happen to have some similar kind of language the Gronks use. You should be able to use low powered pulses that can penetrate the ionized
plasma to get their attention without damaging the ship.”
Custern thought for a good minute shaking his head before looking back at Jack after he had turned forward again. “No. Captain I do not recall any such primitive language and I cannot find any references in my data that resembles such slow primitive communications.” The Gronk seemed to think for a few seconds. “Why would you need such slow primitive communications Captain?”
Jack turned to look at the Gronk and smiled. “When it was invented it was quite an advantage and very advanced. Now it is taught for just such emergencies as this.”
“Yes I see how that could be an advantage. You will have to teach me this primitive language Captain.”
“Ya sure Custern. But that won’t help us right now. Try getting their attention first before you blast their engines.”
At 5 miles from the boat Custern opened up sending several groups of 3 shots into the fireball without the crew of the boat seeming to even notice. “Keep it up as we close. They have to get the hint eventually.”
At a mile from the boat Jack could see their cone getting much too close to the other boat’s much larger and more powerful cone reaching miles ahead and a mile across. “Ok. Still nothing from them? No sign at all?”
“No sir. I am starting to doubt the shells are getting through the plasma. It may be shielding the ship.”
“Ok... Well start upping the power of your guns. Aaa slowly. I really don’t want to damage the ship if we don’t have to let alone kill the crew. That is what we are trying to avoid.”
With no response at a quarter power Custern upped the guns up to half power then went back to banging away with groups of 3 shot at a time. Twenty minutes later his guns were up to full power and not only could he not get any response from the Fighter/bomber but he could not seem to even damage the engines.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 17
