With all the metal showing in the rocks Jack took it for granted that someone at one time had tried to make a mining station out of this Staging area or maybe the staging area had been made out of an old mining station that was worthless once The Rock had been discovered with its core full of all the Iron the Navy could possible use in a million years. It would explain why the Corridors in and out of this station had deteriorated so badly if they had originally been built to civilian standards instead of the military’s. Whatever the reason for the Station’s existence, the rocks around the damn junkyard made it all too good a place for an ambush. Which could explain the reason for all the wrecks if every ship that happened to arrive got ambushed over a long period of time, the numbers would add up. Actually no. There was just too damn many even for that. Someone would have noticed that many ships going missing in one area over the years.
“Sensors, can you get a rough idea how long those ships have been there?”
“One minute Cap and I will have it down to plus or minus a day or two but a rough guess is 6 months.”
Jack’s head snapped around. “Aaa. ON average? Ok I can see the transports that were recently sent here but see if you can find how long the oldest ships or ship has been there.”
“Aaa Captain. The Station shows readings of several hundred years at least but all the others have only been here for at most 6 months. They are all leaking gasses and fluids with dispersion patterns of roughly 6 months as far as they have spread out from them and the damaged core readings.” Turning to Jack. “If any of them had been there any longer, the leakage would have spread farther out into the cloud than it has. As it is I can detect a trail up the corridor from open space that coincides with the time line. Except the ships docked at the station, all of the damaged ships came in at the same time give or take a day or two sir.”
“What about life signs?”
“I get indications but there is too much interference from all the crap from the wreckage for anything even a guess.” The sensor operator shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe when we get better readings from the scouts Captain.”
Jack turned to the Doctor/Steward. “Truitt, anything you can tell me damn it. Lives are on the line here.”
“Damn it boy I don’t have a clue how to operate this damn board. I’m a doctor trained as a fucking cook and frying grills look nothing like this.”
“Then get the hell out if you can’t help… No damn it. Stay put.” Jack popped his safety harness off and jumped up stepping to the Doctor at the rear console and started hitting keys and icons. “Here is the training program for the sensors and the console. Don’t take your head out of this console until you can tell me if something is alive at the center of a planet even if it takes the rest of your life. I am tired of guessing every time we come up on a ship or wreck or rock and you are the Doctor and you are going to start telling me. If this station or the sensors we have can’t do it, you will find out what will and tell me so we can get or make them for you.”
Jack turned around heading back to the Command Chair but stopped as he looked out at the rows of Destroyers docked at the 10 foot wide, 30 foot tall rails that ran up along the sides of the hull from between the fins all the way forward to where the bow started sloping into a point. He had brought a dozen of the Destroyers along to test the concept of staging them from a mother ship not expecting them to be used for anything. Now he was suddenly damn glad to have them and wishing he had brought the other squadron along as well. “Number One, get the rest of the Destroyers launched thrusters only. I want a 10,000 mile perimeter around the ship. Any trap should be along either the entrance or exit of the Staging area so the squadron should be safe since we are coming in from an unexpected direction through the cloud and still an hour out but I am not taking chances. Sensors keep an eye out for any waves in the cloud that will donate someone or thing approaching powered down. Any rocks headed at or even past the squadron are to be taken as hostile’s period. No ifs, ands, or buts. I am taking the destroyer we are using for testing the new gun arrangement, the Phoenix, in for a closer look. Have the assault transports follow me and get our bomber transports ready and follow the assault transports to evacuate anyone we find on those hulks. You can start edging the squadron closer to the Staging area on minimum thrust without the feed cones extending the corridor channel. The Tanker can always come back and open up the channel the rest of the way later. Leaving the end here will also make it harder for anyone to find it if we have to abandon it.”
Jack left the Bridge as the First Officer dropped into the Command Chair and started issuing orders. The Marine’s, “Captain leaving the Bridge.” Not raising as many hairs on his neck as usual. At least it was better than that damn Admiral Crap that had been coming out of everyone’s mouths for the last week. Not that the thought of jumping down some one’s throat had more than flashed through his mind a dozen times. There had been way too many other things to worry about like first hoping to find their lost supply transports to keep his growing Command from starving to death and now rescuing anyone left on some damn hulks somehow dragged here from the Rim Battle for the certain enemy ambush that had to be ahead.
Jack was pretty sure who the ships were but he was still wondering how the hell they had gotten there and why. The only thing he could think of was that the Spiders had brought the hulks here to what was probably one of the few entrances they had found as bait for a trap. After all this was the closest Entry point in and Staging area in The Cloud to the Enemy Fleet. The perfect place to follow any survivors back to the next staging area or even The Rock itself. The problem was that by now Jack’s crews new damn well what the Spider Battleships energy signatures were even on standby and there simply were none around. And if they were hiding cold, Jack would have plenty of time to kill them before they could warm up and start their fusion cores for maneuvering. Though it would only take a few minutes to pull the rods from their fission generators to fire their weapons. Thank Godstar the Fission cores stood out like beacons when they were lit off know that they knew they had them. Hopefully anything the Spider Gods had was far enough away for him to get in and find the transports and get out again. But then if they had too many Battleships or they were to close, all Jack had to do was disappear back into the cloud.
That is unless they had a new tactic or equipment like something small. Something fighter bomber size and a lot of them that could easily hide in the cloud. The Battleship records Pan’s cousins had dumped into is mind suddenly showed a huge Fighter Bomber Carrier that could hold tens of thousands of fighters and bombers for attacking well prepared God planets to capture factories and resources. Starting to panic his memory said that the God Fleet did not have any of the huge Carriers left. None had survived the final Battle when they had tried to take back their God Battleship Factory and its planet before being banished into the outer reaches of this Galactic arm.
What if Pan’s Cousins were wrong? What if they had one or a few Battle Carriers Pan’s Cousins knew nothing about. Would they risk sending one or two of their last Battle Carriers this deep into Human space with only a squadron of escorts? Certainly if they had come with a whole fleet but then The Rock’s Scouts would have spotted them. But then he had destroyed a whole fleet and a whole new fleet was approaching The Cloud now.
Slapping his wrist comm as he started jogging toward the hatch leading to the Destroyer that was sitting between the landing/cooling fines just aft and to port of the Bridge. “Number One, I want you to change the sensors focus to small fighter and bomber sized targets. We may have a damn God Carrier standing far enough off not to be seen but we should be able to pick up its fighter/bomber wings if they are out there. If you even get a trace that you suspect is an enemy fighter. Immediately recall everything and get the hell out of here ASAP. We can’t even think of trying to take on 10,000 fighter bombers directly. We will have to come back later and find the Carrier first and destroy it if possible, then we can worry about rescuing our guys if any
are even still alive out there.”
“Changing focus now Captain.”
Jack wasn’t worried about taking on a God Carrier as long as he knew where it was and had time to prepare. Especially in this cloud. The Carrier if it was there was as good as dead. He was just not sure how many of his new crews would have to pay the ultimate price and if he could take it out fast enough to have very many of the fleet ships to rescue by the time he did. For the first time Jack was praying that he was wrong and Pan’s Cousins were right. But nothing else fit. The remnants of Task Force 58 with its old mass drive engines could not possible have made it all the way back here on its own even if it did not have all the hulks he had been staring at on the screens. It had to have help and a lot of it. Which begged the question as to why come directly here when there were half a hundred planets along the way that could have helped them and spread the word that they had survived. But then they would have had to have been Spider crew and Ape free. They couldn’t possibly have hidden being under the thumbs of the enemy if indeed they were under enemy control stopping at any of the planets on the way. But nothing else fit what little information he now had. He had to get into the staging area and find out before he risked the rest of the squadron.
Jack passed the marine sentry at the bottom of the ramp without slowing down and was gone before the sentry could salute which was just fine with him. He realized that there were a dozen crewmen ahead of him making a mad dash up the ramps tunnel and through the Phoenix’s hatch. Reaching the hatch he saluted the colors and started to turn around to close it and saw even more crewmen rushing at him so he just turned and headed for the bridge.
Jogging past the closed Captain’s Cabin’s hatch still pissed him off at the expensive opulence all through the cabin. Every time he had passed the damn hatch over the last month Jack thought about taking a torch and cleaning the cabin down to the mettle bulkheads just to get the old Captain’s stink out of it. But after blowing the Officers trying to ambush him guts and brains out across the bulkheads with a blaster, Jack didn’t think that smell would ever come out. Though he was never planning on using the cabin he was surprised to see that the holes in the bulkhead he had blown to both sides of the Conference room hatch to take out the trap had been patched up as good as new. He had continued using the destroyer with a skeleton crew after the majority of the crew had been hauled off and slapped in the brig powering the Spider hulk Battleship around the bubble to dock with the hulk station.
Then the ship was just handy to use for testing new engine upgrades and weapons configurations. Not to mention it gave him the opportunity with only a skeleton crew to pilot one of the Destroyers he had actually designed in real life instead of just in the Sims. Spending hours relaxing piloting the ship on gun runs testing different guns not including the latest configuration with a 24inch gun slapped under each wing in place of the old 16inch gun he had originally slapped under the center line of the little ship. Though the big guns were in the way of the lower 8 inch gun turrets which he had not figured out yet what to do with. He even had one of the spar Battleship engines attached to the underside down the middle under the stern 200 feet of the ship. It looked a bit ugly but it could get up and go. Jack knew he was going to have to take the engine off and put it on one of the transports as soon as they started operations outside the cloud but that was a few weeks away yet so Jack had enjoyed himself while he could. That was until now.
They had not yet had a chance to test the twin gun configuration. The engineers were afraid the guns firing together would break the ship apart and firing separately would knock it so far off course so fast, they would not be able to hit a target. With the lower 8 inch guns blocked from deploying, Jack did not even know if he had half his weapons, or any come to think about it. The lone 8inch twin gun turrets on the top of each wing, could easily hit and destroy the 24 inch gun barrels sticking out about a hundred feet in front of the wing from below the turrets. They had not yet had time to program the turret guns to miss the big long Barrels so they had simply disabled them for the tests. Not good for going into battle but someone had to stick their head down the lions mouth and hope they could run fast enough if they needed to. And no one could run faster than the Phoenix with that battleship engine on its back and its cruiser engines replaced by a pair of the latest Ex-slave/Human designed fusion power cores in each engine bay feeding both the engines and the 24/16 inch guns. Hell he could not even make up his mind how small to squeeze down the barrels of the 24 inch guns yet. Though that depended mainly on how well they worked against the God Battleships which they lacked for target practice at the moment and the last thing he wanted right then was to find one here. Target practice needed to wait until he was sure the Destroyer could even fire the guns without destroying itself.
Jack knew one thing for certain, the Phoenix was going to surprise someone in the next hour. He just did not know who. Him or the enemy. Though he hopped no one.
Jack still had to ignore the opulence on the bridge though much of it had already been torn out but his mind was back on business as he headed for the pilot’s cockpit chair and found it full. He started to yell at the guy to get the hell out of his seat when he realized it was the best pilot the Destroyers had and she was not about to take any shit from even her Captain. Temp Admiral or not.
Grumping Jack took the Command Chair. “You were assigned to pilot Captain Burk’s destroyer. You can just go back there. I will not have anyone breaking up established teams to babysit me. I can pilot this ship just fine on my own”
“Sorry Captain but I have been here since the ship docked with the Red Pepper. Captain Sherman has had a new pilot for a long time now. Been boring sitting around here doing nothing but my nails.”
Jack sat back fuming as he noticed the Lieutenant’s chest still heaving in and out with a film of glistening sweat across her neck and brow from running. Then looked around to see that his normal test crew were absent. “Damn you. Where is my test crew?” Jack looked around and noticed that all the stations were filled with the best crewmen from a dozen different ships. Most of them senior officers. All of them breathing a little heavy.
“The test crew are down in auxiliary control monitoring the weapons and engines without having to worry about running and fighting the ship Captain.” The First Officer (who was in line to Command the next Destroyer they got their hands on, this ship in fact if Jack had not named and claimed it as a test ship) said as he walked into the Bridge from behind Jack. “Auxiliary Control has finished the departure Check list, all hull hatches and locks are closed and checked, we are on ships power, clamps are singled up and unlocked and we are ready to launch Captain.” And then sat down at the Tactical console breathing a little hard himself.
The marine that had been at the bottom of the gangplank tunnel came running up out of breath as he took his position next to the hatch and said. “Main hatch locked and secured sir.”
The Comm officer spoke up. “Flight control says we are cleared to launch Captain. Number one in the chute.”
“In other words the rest are waiting on me.” Jack looked around pissed that his First Officer on the Red Pepper was not going to let him take his destroyer out and fly it like a fighter into Combat with his skeleton test crew. Royally screwing up all the fun he had been looking forward to for at least a week. Though he had to admit finding something besides a couple dozen transports here was a lot more fun than he had planned on. “You may launch Number One.” Pouting because he did not get his way while feeling like a fifth wheel. ‘If he had wanted to be a damn Captain for this mission he would have stayed on the damn Red Pepper.’ Jack bitched at himself.
Taking a deep breath Jack new that he had lied to himself, he had grabbed the damn Phoenix so he wouldn’t risk the Red Pepper and the lives on it. He also had to admit that having a full crew had just doubled his chances of making it out alive no matter what happened. But damn it, he still wanted to pilot the damn thing. At least for a few minutes even if it
wasn’t into combat. He knew from experience that piloting while in combat instead of doing his job as Captain had cost lives when he had gotten to busy piloting to see the big picture that included the ship’s operations as well as the enemies. That he or any Captain could not think about the big picture if he or she was busy piloting. A stupid sounding expression to anyone that has never command a ship before. A fighter pilot had to operate as close to instinct as possible as fast as things changed in battle, with rapid instant responses with no time to think about other things, and take it for granted that the fighter he or she was in was ready and fully capable and the game plane was all there was. But that was not enough on a ship. It was the Captain’s responsibility to keep the ship ready and able to fight while thinking about the rapidly changing Game Plan and everything else to keep the ship away from dangers that even the best pilots could not see or avoid while out smarting the enemy and it was a full time job that did not need any distractions including having fun. “Shit!” Jack said much too loud.
“Captain?” The First Officer turned to face Jack.
“Nothing Number One. Just commenting on Life.”
The first Officer turned back around smiling with a little chuckle. He knew the Captain had been using this DD as his own personal play toy for the last week and sympathized with him but knew play time was over.
Taking a deep breath Jack got busy being Captain. “Navigator, follow the track left by the scout bombers and fighters headed for the Staging Station. Pull up when we reach their deployment marker. Sparks, make sure we don’t have our fly open please and weapons, you have 15 minutes to get the 8/4s programmed not to shoot our dicks off and see if you can get the lower turrets deploy fare enough to use if we need them. They should be able to fire straight ahead and to the sides.” Taking a deep breath. “As close as we are going to be to the enemy, I don’t think we have to worry about not hitting anything with the 24/16’s. In fact if we go up against fighters and bombers we may want to test low power rapid fire with the diffusers. We don’t need full power against lightly armored fighters and several shots a second with a couple hundred foot wide beam footprint means we don’t have to be that accurate. Get with the test guys in auxiliary control and get me that option ready, give them something useful to do. Engineering, I want you to get the mass scoops engine bypass hooked up to the engine’s mass diffuser. We may need to use it as another rear defense weapon against fighters. I think I have a way to aim the matter stream like a tail gun to help out the 5 inch turrets back there. Get things going down there and then get back to me and we can go over what we will need for the coils and controls.” They had already figured out how to use the Scoops put on to supply mass to the original Destroyer’s engines to clear a path through the cloud for the ship and then shoot the extra mass back out using a second set of cones to deposit and fill the void left behind leaving no trace of the ships passage. But they didn’t need stealth when fighters were already on their ass, they needed every weapon they could come up with.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 78
