Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer)

by Larry Roberts

  Jack finished his business but was so intent on the screen he lost track of time as his eyes closed without realizing it and suddenly he was thrown to the side as he heard the whine and bang of the landing gear being retracted. Reaching to pull up his pants he found himself first pushed back down onto the head as the ship pulled up hard off of the wide station platform they had landed on. Then pushed off to the side as the ship came around as it continued pulling up hard with the grave coils still on landing minimums Jack found himself sliding off and to the side of the head to the deck. Then trying to pick himself up he was suddenly floating up toward the overhead as the ship dove over the side of the station’s platform between the arms onto the course that had already been plotted and cleared toward Delta-7 and Task Force 58.

  Dropping back down the side of the head Jack was wedged between the head and the bulkhead as the ride smoothed out. His head hanging across the open bowl like a drunk praying to the porcelain god though this one was stainless steel, Jack was thankful it had emptied and sanitized itself before all the gyrations started and that no one could see him making a fool of himself. It took a few seconds to extricate himself from the small space beside the bowl. His pants down around his ankles not helping matters. Then as he stood up and bent over to pull up his pants the ship jerked around something throwing Jack off his feet again as he crashed into the bulkhead getting thrown down beside the bowl again but head first this time looking up at the backside of bowl. Extricating himself again he tried again to pull up his pants only to get thrown backwards against the bulkhead but this time he managed to at least pull up his pants with one hand as he held onto one of the straps used to buckle oneself down to the head when needed in free fall zero-G.

  The ship leveled out long enough for the Grave coils to finish coming up to power so the next maneuver was only felt instead jerked. Jack finished fixing his cloths and cleaning up then retrieved the Navigation screen and stepped out of the little hatch. Shaking off his embarrassment at ignoring the takeoff and maneuvering alarms as he studied the screen before the ship took off, Jack stepped into the little pantry next to the head and fixed himself some tea and a bite to eat. He knew he could not do any better than whoever was flying the ship this close to the station. Especially after all the hard maneuvering the ship had done and continued to do with the grave coils finally up to power smoothing out the flight for the crew. Jack could now barely feel the maneuvers as space around him kept turning and jerking with each maneuver around another obstacle as the ship kept accelerating around objects to head toward and then back down the corridor.

  An MRE sandwich in one hand and his tea in the other, Jack strolled onto the bridge as the ship entered the corridor from New Home deliberately kept in the fog trying not to make it to obvious where it was. The Corridor was more of a series of navigation markers than an actual cleared corridor, forcing the ships in it to us the collecting cones to clear the gasses and dust from in front of them and deposit them back after they passed. Though Jack had already ordered the newly created Corridor built to use their new technology was going to have to be cleared for a while to get the convoy of new transports to New Home. At least long enough to get them modified and do the supply mission before releasing them back to their duties for The Rock. The reason he did not want to add skimmer cones to them to try to keep The Rock from finding out about that new technology they did not need yet.

  Looking around the bridge trying to be as inconspicuous as possible standing just inside the hatch, Jack started to relax until someone shouted. “Admiral on the Bridge.” Making him jump and turn to look out the hatch next to him only to swallow and turn red with embarrassment. Looking down at his half full cup he was glad it was only half full as he took another bite and tried to stretch.

  Then with both hands full, all Jack could do was watch as everyone not at a critical console jumped up to attention. Including Captain Chin. Jack was just glad that since he had been on the bridge only a few minutes before they were not required to salute. He really didn’t want to spill his tea and he wasn’t sure what protocol there was for an admiral not returning a salute with a tea cup in his hand after taking a few minutes to take a dump. Something he had not expected to ever have to worry about. And then he realized that he had been gone an hour.

  Quickly swallowing his bite of sandwich Jack said. “Carry on.”

  Captain Chin stepped aside from the Command Chair. “You have the Bridge Admiral Turner.”

  “Aaa, No I don’t. It is still yours Captain.” Which in fact it was. The ship was assigned to Chin and suddenly Jack felt incredible depressed at his stupidity of thinking he could just grab a Destroyer for himself. Taking a deep breath as Chin sat back down in the Command Chair. Especially after giving his ship the Red Pepper away. But then he knew he could not be the Captain the Red Pepper needed while he was trying to play at being a fricking Admiral.” Jack took another drink and bite of his sandwich. “But they were headed for TF-58 and Admiral Spencer. He would just hand the job over to Spencer to assign it to someone more qualified and he could at least have the time to command the Phoenix. Wishing now he had not left it behind with TF-58 and the other half of the squadron but they needed its big guns there. Or better yet he could finally properly command the Red Pepper. That is if he could get the Red Pepper back. Bullshit he had not signed any papers transferring command so technically the ship was still his. Even if that did make him an Indian giver. ‘Where the hell did that old saying come from?” Shaking his head he wanted to rub his eye’s awake but couldn’t with his hands full. But first he had a fleet to save and then talk to Admiral Spencer again about giving up this Admiral shit. After all the Admiral must have a dozen Admirals playing with themselves right now in TF-58.

  Then Jack felt the ship slow as they went around one of the corridor markers and realized that the pilot only advanced the throttle back up to half power after the turn where it had been before.

  Jack stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and stepped up next to the pilot and tapped him on the shoulder and jerked his thumb to the side.

  The pilot turned control over to the navigator/copilot and got up. Still chewing the remnants of his sandwich, Jack looked at Captain Chin and realized it was going to take a good 10 to 15 seconds before he could swallow. He shouldn’t have stuffed the rest of the dry sandwich of bred and some kind of MRE meat paste and cheese into his mouth but damn he was hungry. Jack just plopped down into the cockpit chair surrounded by screens and controls. Placing his cup on a slanted flat spot on the side of the console, which was against all kinds of regulations as long as he could remember, he pushed the throttles up to maximum then buckled in and hit the General Quarters alarm. The Navigator/Copilot giving Jack a dirty look as he continued to fly the ship as its speed started to increase rapidly.

  Jack finished buckling in and then used his hot tea to wash down his dry sandwich before saying over his shoulder. “Crewmen are dying Captain Chin. We don’t have time to take a walk through the park and get there next week. My apologies. Just keep the ship together and running for me and I will get us there in one piece.”

  The Navigator/Copilot had been creeping the throttles back down and Jack slapped them forward again as he finished his tea. “Engineering, best be ready on the scoop. You are going to need to steer it around the bigger rocks as I maneuver.”

  “Admiral! We are approaching the turn marker. We have to slow down.” The Copilot/Navigator said.

  Jack smiled as he tossed the cup toward the disposal chute (surprised when he hit the hole, doing a double take) and dropped his hands onto the controls. “Who says we are turning? Delta 7 is that away.” Jack pointed straight ahead and cut the Navigator’s copilot controls.

  A second later the Destroyer zipped past the marker and out of the corridor and Jack became very busy. There was a good reason the corridor had turned. The rocks suddenly got very big and thick.

  The Scoops providing mass to the engines while opening a clear bub
ble around the ship before re-depositing the majority of the gasses back into the void left behind the ship, but that created drag. The faster the ship went the more drag their interaction with the dust and gasses of the cloud created. Unlike free space the ship had to maintain thrust to keep its speed up.

  Though the Destroyer had the advantage of its maneuvering coils used inside planetary systems to push and pull against mass objects allowing the ship to fly almost like an atmospheric aircraft but across the vacuum of space as long as it had mass or mag lines from stars, planets, moons and even asteroids. In the cloud those same maneuvering coils could be used against the vast mass of the cloud even though the mass was spread over trillions of miles. The coils allowing Jack to fly the ship over, under and around obstacles that appeared on collision courses with the ship without having to turn the ship 90 degrees to use engine thrust each time he needed to go around something. The sensor records map of the space around their meandering corridor on their trip in on the side screen (Jack had studied on the navigation screen in the head), now paying dividends even if he had fallen asleep. Though he was keeping them in the thinner areas he still found he had to keep the speed down to not out run his eyes when it came to the cold cloud.

  “Ok Captain Chin, where are my new sensors. I am having to keep the speed down without them and that is going to get even worse when we go to bypass the freeway running to The Rock if I don’t have those sensors by then.” The freeway was a good 12 hours away but he needed them now, a lot sooner than he had planned.

  “They are installing the new equipment in the Main Sensor Compartment now Admiral. You should have them in a half hour.” The Captain was pushed down in his seat in spite of the mass dampening grave coils and then his stomach tried to fly out of his throat as he became light headed for a few seconds as they went over a large rock that suddenly loomed ahead. “Aaa Admiral shouldn’t we slow down a little. That was awfully close.”

  “Not at all Chinn. Plenty of room. Been rock jumping since I could reach the controls on a scooter. All you have to know is the thousand and one secrets to doing it safely and a lot of practice. Don’t tell me Training Command didn’t do any Asteroid Ring training when they gave you Command of this Destroyer. Shit! Something else I am going to have to add to my list. May help in a few battles. Especially in the Cloud or around a planet or star system. Yes you definitely need some fighter pilot training.” Jack turned the ship around a rough looking patch. Jack tapped is Comm. “Engineering, I need 120% on the engines and don’t give me any gruff. Just do it and then see what you can do getting me more. And get me those new sensors.” Jack knew he needed to double his speed through the cloud as soon as possible. The fact that he had already doubled their speed through the corridors on their way to New Home making half the crew including the ship’s Captain think they had a mad man for a pilot was not noticed by Jack since he was doing the piloting. All he saw was the need for speed.

  “I Admiral.” Came the reply from the Chief Engineer that was enjoying himself as his engines finally had a reason to stretch their legs instead of putting along beside slow transports.

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  Twenty two hours later Destroyer 1701 zipped into the Delta-7 Bay still going way to fast but still managed to miss everything in its path. “Delta -7 traffic control. This is Admiral Turner, we are here with emergency medical food supplements. Give me direct clearance to the Black Dwarf since they have the majority of the Casualties. The supplements with the specialists we have brought along will keep anyone else from dying from the pill until we can get the fleet to some food. We will distribute the supplements to the station and other ships from the Dwarf. Over.”

  “Welcome back Admiral even if it is a surprise. You are cleared for a direct approach to the Black Dwarf. Follow the Yellow brick road to the Dwarfs main hanger bay. Contact BD approach control at 423 Gigahertz. Over.”

  The Black Dwarf had moved into the edge of Delta-7’s cleared bubble on the other side of the station so Jack pulled back on the Destroyers power to let them slide past the Station tail first following the yellow brick coarse rings dropping toward the Dwarf.

  The DD rapidly closed with the Black Dwarf. Expecting to dock in the tall Battleship repair locks at the bottom of the ship, Jack was a bit surprised that the Yellow brick shaped box coarse lines headed for one of the Dwarf’s fighter/transport boat hangers at the forward end of the huge mass tanks of the ship. He was sure that the Destroyer would not fit through the fighter/transport boat locks into the huge boat bay that filled most of that deck. But they had to know what they were doing. At least he hoped so.

  Then with the velocity icon on the side of the yellow brick road demanding that they maintain 500 knots Jack really started worrying as he flipped the destroyer over to power back up to speed. Then he saw the little strobe light on the side of the ship around the side from the boat locks the yellow brick lines ended at as they approached the bow of the ship below the passenger and command decks and Jack had to ask. “Approach control, are you sure you want me to hit the side of the ship? Please check our navigation track?” Then Jack noticed the ring of narrow platforms running around the sides between the open locks as they got closer. With them on edge and dark compared to the bright open hangers with landing lights flashing, they were hard to see from a distance.

  “Follow instructions 1701. Maintain velocity. We have our own squadron of DD’s. Or had. Over.”

  Jack could see several DD’s sitting on a ring of platforms that circled the outside of the Black Dwarf around the Boatdeck. Jack realized that the dozen 400 foot square platforms folded out from the side of the ship were perfect for the larger intra system cargo boats to land on to quickly load and unload cargo and passengers without having to go through locks to enter the Boatdeck itself. The platforms looked to be the perfect size to land the DD’s on with Gangplank tubes running out to the bows of the littleships. He could see several large Transports boats that looked as long as the Destroyers but a whole lot fatter and taller farther around the ring of platforms. The transports were using the medium sized hatches in their tapering bows facing forward below their bridges instead of the bigger stern hatches that crossed the majority of their sterns. Evidentially they were transporting a lot of personnel instead of cargo. Or at least big cargo.

  “Seventeen Zero One, you are approaching to fast, decelerate and follow the meatball directions for deceleration rate to your platform.”

  Flipping the ship around to rapidly slow the DD since he had let them build up too much speed as he tried to figure out what was going on. Then back around to face forward to use the bow thrusters for the final approach like most boats. Jack could not help it as he started feeling a little sweaty. He was used to landing small boats since he could remember and now fighters into all too small locks or small landing platforms using the lights at the back of the locks or platformsthey called the Meatball to guide him down the center (for some reason he still could not get a good answer amongst the dozens of stories he had heard over the years about why they called it a Meatball since he was old enough to sit on Pop’s lap and fly one of the Turner Joy’s Shuttle boats) but he had never thought of using the system with a ship to land on a much too small platform before. Or a boat as large as the ones he was seeing around the Black Dwarf. Not that he had not seen system boats that large before but they usually where treated like interstellar ships even if they couldn’t leave the Starsystem they were in. And not told to follow the Meat Ball to land on platforms little bigger than themselves.

  But as the DD approached, maintaining the meat ball centered with the deceleration bar, he had no problem whipping the DD around backwards at the last second before he would have normally entered a lock or landed on the platform, turning its stern toward the lock hatches along the Dwarf’s hull. Not liking the hassle or the time it would take to attach the small personnel Gangplank tube to the side bow hatches of the DD he saw on the other DD’s when the small cargo ramp tube w
as already sitting out attached to the central 12’ by 12’ lock with a small 7 by personnel lock without the needed tube next to it and a control room above between the two 50’ by 20’ cargo locks. Besides he had seen some of the equipment the medical techs had brought on board with them and taking the equipment out the normal Gangplank personnel tube on the side of the bow would have been a hell of a hassle.

  As Jack locked the ship to the deck and shut down the flight controls. Several large vehicles came up and grabbed onto 2 of the converted Cargo Container tanks and then dropped them off the hull. They quickly ran away with them into the now open 50 by 20 lock but stopped with the tanks hanging half out across the ramp. Shaking his head Jack watched the lock’s side bulkheads and overhead slide out onto the platform lengthening the lock making itself long enough to hold the long tanks before the outer hatch closed. The other cargo tanks soon disappeared into the other lock that lengthened around them.

  Jack climbed out of the pilots chair realizing he was covered in sweat barely able to walk as he hung onto the back of the pilot’s seat and console to get his legs moving with some feeling again. Finally realizing how long he had been in the Cockpit. He felt wrung out. Seeing Captain Burk looking like he was pissed off, Jack smiled. “Cheer up Captain, we made it in one piece and in record time. I told you we would. You run a damn fine ship and crew. I am proud of them and you.”

  The Captain turned red. “You could have killed us a dozen times and then what… How many more would have died waiting for someone else to bring them the supplements if they ever got them at all.” Taking a deep breath the Captain’s whole body started shaking. “Get the hell off my ship Admiral. If I never see you again it will be too soon.” He said through clenched teeth.