“Yes sir I am already in contact with Harlem concerning other production matters you brought up and we agree that it would be easier and more efficient if you let me take over Transport production here and left his factories alone. Less down time and lost production Captain since she has only started parts for the Transport construction in one factory. I will have the transport divided between 5 factory cores shortening production time for the first Transport to about the time you arrive. With your hundred transports produced in a couple of days.”
Suspicion flashed through his mind that the two Dumonts were talking mentally across the huge distance between Station and Battleship but reason won out as he noticed Yarr’s one hand tapping something to the side of the console and took a breath. Pan was always good at talking while texting. “Aaa, don’t you need to test the prototype for bugs before you commit to production.”
“Yes and no Captain, We are testing it virtually as we speak and will fly the prototype as soon as it comes off the production line shutting down for a few hours if changes are needed. None of the equipment on the Transport is new, only the size of the basic hull and cockpit is different. Most problems should only be minor fitting and placement problems. Nothing that will need much testing or can’t be changed later. We will make a few minor improvements as we go. If you please Captain we have work to do.”
“Yes Yarr. Out.” As the screen went blank Jack suddenly cringed. He remembered to many times when people had said minor improvements only to come back with something completely different and not even close to what Jack had wanted. “He would just have to wait though and hope when he saw the prototype in a few hours that it did not turn out to be an exact copy of the original Torpedo bomber.
“Captain, I keep picking up a distress call through the Buzzard cone. Very faint and I can’t get a lock on it. Just a general direction.” Red said from behind him. “I think the cone is amplifying the signal. I have been getting intermittent threads of it for some time now. In fact I did not know it was a distress call until I combined the threads and snips.”
“Ok. Aaa verbal or text?”
“Verbal Captain. Sending the combined message to you now.”
Jack listened to it several times but it was so scratchy and faint that he was not sure but it sounded like it said. “Help, SOS. We are… stranded deep in cloud sector... SOS. Help…”
“Well. Good work Red. But without the ship’s name, location or a time stamp, it could be decades old and from tens of light years away on the other side of the Nebula. Hundreds of ships have disappeared into the Nebula both Republic and enemy ships from past wars looking for The Rock over the centuries. Keep an eye on it for more details and record the direction the best you can with each intercept but right now I need to talk to Combat Flight Control back on the Battleship.”
Pan was suddenly yelling in his mind. “You stupid floating turd the birds won’t even peck. We need to use the few shuttles we have left to search for the rare elements we need. Not establish mines for material we can scrape off the bubble close to the Station or the shield deck we left behind that already have mines going and the equipment to expand!”
“You can use 2 of the shuttles to search while the rest establish central mines at these locations for Simi rare elements we have already found to serve as staging areas for when we find the truly rare elements.” Chump said back without yelling.
Jack spent some time talking to Combat Flight Control thinning out the patrols and the support transports so they could recall the rest to get the prospecting and mining programs going.
Pan again broke into his thoughts as she yelled at Chump again. “No you slime bottom dweller. Without the critical rare elements the Simi rare aren’t worth Killifish. It is going to take a concentrated effort by what little we can get to find what we need scattered across trillions of square miles of the bubble if it is even there.”
“That is the point landlubber. We need the Simi rare elements to build better sensors so we can use wider search patterns and look deeper into the outer crust to find the rarest of the elements and not miss anything.”
Jack was getting a lot tired of listening to the two of them arguing but he dared not tell them he had already taken care of the problem else Chump would get suspicious that he could hear them mind talking. But enough was enough. “Pan! Jack yelled getting everyone’s attention. Aaa, why don’t you come up and let Red teach you how to operate the Console and the duties of a Weapon’s Engineer.” Calming down Jack smiled over his shoulder at the other Dumont that was staring at him as well. “Chump, you can start at the little cargo master’s board next to the elevator just aft of the head using the training program and then go around and check the cargo compartment for leaks or any signs of problems. A slow leak can kill a crew over time if the safeties or alarms are damaged. The responsibilities of a cargo master. You can change places with Pan when she has the basics down.” Jack’s eyes started to shine as he turned back. “Feel free to hide little notes where you think a problem could occur for Pan to find if she does not get lazy and is smart enough. And then trade every half hour after that so you each can get some experience on both systems. At the end of the trip we will count the number of notes not found to decide the better Overseer. Only notes on legitimate critical parts or possible leaks will be counted.” Hoping the little game used on recruits would keep them busy and out of his head while he tried to think. If he had been the trainer he would have left little notes around to see if the new crewmen were doing their job and keep old crewmen on their toes like what had been done to him. But it had been 6, no 7 years since he had that low of a rank in The Game.
“We are kind of busy Captain.” Pan said.
“Doesn’t look like it to me and the next time you take a ride I want you both to be able to pull your weight like Red here if shit hits the fan.” Jack smiled. “We humans call it cross training and it comes in handy when casualties start happening during combat. So Pan, get your can up next to Red and start studying.”
Red moved the chair back up next to her and Pan made herself comfortable then Red pulled up a program on her screen. “Overseer, take this training program onto your pad. It will take you through the basics and with you next to me, it be easier for you to compare what the program shows you and what you can see me doing. Ask me and I will explain problems or answer any questions you have.”
“Why don’t you let me sit at the console to start with?” Pan was put out not happy that she had to waste her time.
“It would be a waste of time until you have the basics in your head Overseer. If you think you know it all then take the test at the end of the training program and we will skip the basics and you can have the board Overseer and I will start training you on the advanced systems and procedures.”
Pan just looked at her without saying a thing verbally or in her mind for a good half minute then turned to her pad and started reading.
Jack smiled as he pulled up the schematics of the Destroyer onto the main screen in front of him from his pad and started expanding its size. He knew the Destroyers needed bigger weapons to take on the Spider Battleships and the only big weapons he was intimately familiar with were the 16 inch guns of the Republic Battleships so he used 8 of them as a template to work from as he had done with the 8 inch guns on his original Destroyers the Navy had stolen from The Game.
The Navy had needed something cheap and easy to build to replace the Battleships. Something they could fly around populated systems to keep the public happy with all the battleships away in the fleet. The big gun Admirals’ ruling the roost and running the show, (tired of politicians yelling for ships to protect the home systems) had simply gone to the book of designs and picked the top rated 8 inch cruiser. Only noticing that it was fast and easy to produce and not that it was a small DD design. They also did not know that someone had tapped The Game into the system. That the little Destroyer was only a reality in, The Game. Though, since Jack had used the Navy’s own master
design tools to design this ship (amongst many he had designed for fun over the years) that were part of The Game, the idle small automated ship factory hidden amongst Sol systems asteroid belt was able to easily plug the design in and produce thousands of them. Most of which went straight to the storage yards since the Navy was low on trained crews and Officers to man ships. While a trickle went to the hundreds of Star systems scattered around the Republic when each system proved they had reserve crews ready for them. At first only one or two DD’s managed to make it to each of the hundreds of star systems though that had changed as more crews were trained and now most of production was going straight to the Republic systems.
Jack would have been surprised to find out that the improvements he had made to fix the DD’s 8 inch turrets and a few other problems the week before where already on the new production line with kits headed out to repair DD’s already on patrol around the Republic. Though the DD’s in storage were far down the list. The a few of the kits had already been dumped next to some of the DD’s in storage with no one to install them.
Jack would go through the list of God guns the God Battleship factory Cores could produce that were about 16 inch, later. Jack was using this more to pass the time during the trip and give him a rough idea of what could be done when and if he did get serious. The last thing he wanted to do right then was go back to the piles of paper work and decisions waiting for him back in the real world. Loosing himself in the design system of The Game and the new ship. He had learned so much over the last year about real world combat and ships that he lost himself in upgrading the systems and the new ship to take his new knowledge into account.
When Pan started screaming it took Jack a few seconds to realize where he was and then the only thing that kept him in his seat was his straps. Jack turned to look over his shoulder to see Pan sliding up the cargo compartment holding a note out and waving it in the air. “You bottom swimmer. You actually thought I would not find something as simple as this. A leak in a vent line?”
Jack shook his head taking a few deep breaths trying to calm down after thinking that someone had died. Then checked space around them and went back to his screens and the new ship. Taking a few seconds to enjoy the emerging ship on the screen and the improvements he was adding along with the big guns. Realizing that he was designing it around the Battleship engine powering the Battle Transport Red Pepper and most of the Fleet, he shook his head. During his short time at The Rock while serving on the Super tanker Red Dwarf almost a year before, he had heard about the Engine shortage for the Battleships and Battle Transports. That they were producing hulls faster than the Engines to power them. Which meant that it was stupid to design the new Cruiser sized Destroyer around those engines but then he really didn’t have much choice at the moment unless he wanted to slap a good half dozen or more of the Cruiser Engines on the back that the Destroyers were already using. The Pair of Cruiser Engines on his original smaller Destroyers gave them the speed and acceleration of fighters but with 8 of the 8 inch guns. Heavy Cruisers usually carried 36 to 48 of the 8 inch guns in turrets. The DD’s had plenty of fire power when you had a dozen destroyers rapidly close to gang up and destroy any battleship in The Game, Republic Battleships that is.
The Spider Gods Battleships were a different breed all together and needed a bigger nut to crack them. At least something as big as the 16 inch guns the Republic had been equipping their battleships with until lately. That is as long as he could put them on Destroyers big enough to carry them with the speed to get around behind the huge Enemy battleships and their monster shield decks. The Spider Battleships had plenty of armor against anyone attacker that tried to punch it out head to head with them. Pure stupidity as fare as Jack was concerned. But if you had thousands of battleships preventing an enemy from getting around behind the fleet, it worked.
No, Jack needed a lot of power for his new improved destroyers but he would have to design around what he knew until he could get the time to find out what the Battleship construction Cores had on their lists of big powerful engines. But then he had not been that impressed with what he had seen of the God Engines so far. While the Buzzard scoops were good, the engines on the bombers and fighters were a lot bigger and heavier than the Republic engines with the same amount of power but then they did not seem to need as much maintenance as the Republic engines either. The Republic engines seemed to be a lot more efficient as well though the God fighters and bombers having the scoops more than made up for the deficiency at least around planets with atmospheres and the nebula clouds that could be used for reaction mass.
The fact that the new battleship engines going to the fleet was now his new engine design that did not require large amounts of mass also made using the Battleship engines for propulsion on his big destroyers impossible with the probability of them falling into the God Spider hands to be copied. Though Jack knew that the new reaction massless engines was exactly what his big Battleship Destroyers needed. That keeping a secret that could save the Republic to only use on weapons that were worthless against the enemy while the Republic and humanity died was rather stupid. He just had to get his Battleship Destroyers into Battle and prove that they could do the job and then demand that he be allowed to use the best the Republic had in them. Even if they could fall into enemy hands since the destroyers were simply too small to insure they self-destructed if badly damaged and captured. Jack smiled at the thought that if he had enough of his destroyers to make sure that he won every battle, there was no way one of his engines could fall into enemy hands. But then he knew that was an impossibility if he ever heard one. Going up against those monsters out in open space was not going to be a cake walk. Men and crews were going to die and a lot of them.
Looking down at the schematic Jack increased the leading edge armor of the arrow shaped ship to 50 feet with a solid flat angled face to reflect the enemy weapons as much as possible. The same thickness of the God Battleship shield decks Pan had told him would take several God Gun hits strait on before being penetrated. Then spent some time designing disappearing mounts for the 16 inch guns that would hid them behind the arrowhead leading edge shield between firings much like the 8 inch gun turrets now on the DD’s.
“You Bottom Feeder!” Jack heard the scream echoing from the back of the hold making him smile. At least he was ready for it this time and it wasn’t in his head. Looking over his shoulder he watched Pan sliding forward waving another piece of paper as she continued to yell. “You bottom slim! This could not possibly happen. Captain. Captain. He is making up problems that cannot possible… Captain. Captain!” About half way up the hold she stopped yelling and got a strange look on her face as Jack’s mind picked up a week voice that quickly grew louder as Pan got closer. “You bottom feeder will not get away with this. I am going to tell the Captain that you are making up things trying to best me and I will not have it.” Then out loud with almost a scream. “Captain! Captain!”
Jack noticed Red turn to her console and start tapping Icons.
“Captain!” Pan yelled again. “LOOK at this note. You tell him that this could never…” Her pad started peeping getting her attention. Looking down at her pad as she took it out of a pocket she dropped the paper and promptly sat down on the bench. “My wonderful Leep. How did you know I was coming?” Pan said in Dumontee’s
Red sat back with a huge smile on her face and winked at him when he looked at her.
Jack turned around and tapped the comm screen and realized that Red had placed the call to the Hulk Station and Pan’s kids. Jack turned and smiled at Red who reached over to her screen and started tapping.
Turning back forward he saw a text message appear on his screen. “The Dumonts’ are getting on my nerves Captain. All they have been doing is arguing about everything. I hope her kids keep her occupied. I need the peace and quiet for a while.”
Jack tapped back. “Thanks.”
Looking down at his work Jack realized that the huge block of armor 50 feet thick on h
is new design now made even the battleship engine anemic. Cutting the flat block down to a wedge only 30 feet thick along only half of the steeply slanted leading edge of the arrow. Jack hoped that a hit on the sharply angled armor would provide enough protection over the vitals for the ship to survive at least one hit from the God Guns. That was the best he could do and keep the speed and acceleration up were it needed to be. But that also meant that he could not get away from using the new Battleship engines he had designed that the Big Battleships had a monopoly on. That is unless he could get to the Cruiser engine factory to see if it could produce engines almost as big as the Battleship engines, hope they would be big enough to run without a lot of reworking and then use two of them. Two would be a lot safer anyway allowing the DD to take some battle damage and lose an engine without being stranded and destroyed.
Taking a deep breath Jack saved the design as his number one preference then got to work dumping all the armor and disappearing guns that made the ship survivable but also more complicated and expensive. The stripped down B version with 8, 16 inch guns was a lot faster with single Battleship engine, but the big DD’s C version was much more survivable with some10 of the smaller Cruiser engines lined up in a row along the back even if it had a shorter range unless he could figure out a new reaction massless cruiser sized Ion engine. Then Jack saved both B and C models. Knowing that the 10 engine C model was probably the one that would get put into production if it ever was and if so they could expect 2 to 5 times the casualties. Range did make a difference when it came to survival. They would get the job done if deployed properly but it would be a blood bath for both sides instead of the one sided battles he preferred in The Game.
“Captain.” Red leaned forward putting her hand on his shoulder. “I have a fix on that distress signal. Sir.”
Jack looked up and realized that they were only an hour out from of the Hulk Station. “Put it up on the tactical Red.” And realized it was already there. “Shit that is only a couple hours away using the Buzzard coils to clear a way through the clouds. What the hell could it be?” Shaking his head. “Tell Combat Flight Control that we are going to investigate.” Knowing that the Assault shuttles were being up graded with scoops of their own. “When they finish upgrading the Assault Shuttles, have them hold in case we need them for rescue work. And have them send a combat fighter squadron along just in case we get into trouble.” Jack was already pulling up into the cloud. “Be quick about it before the cloud gets thick enough and cuts off the comms.” Taking a breath. “Oaa. We do have emergency message missiles don’t we?”
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 33
