Fact is Admiral, I think some of the battleships all across the Maze have taken wrong turns and are lost in the maze. A dozen lone ships at least already and what looks like a whole squadron, are off by themselves far from what I think is the proper corridors.”
“Ok. Any idea how long before the DD’s show up back here?”
“Sorry Admiral. Too many Battleships with no way of knowing how many they will attack or how long it will take.”
“Damn. Send the plot to the bridge Winslow.” Jack turned to his comm screen. “Captain Clancy. I need you to send a pair of fighters down each of the corridors we sent the DD’s down and see if they can make contact with the DD’s. As long as the Battleships are headed back down the damn Maze they don’t need to waste time hitting them. Out.”
Jack got up and headed for the hatch. “You coming for some chow Winslow?”
“I eat already and though the alien shit is better than rations, the food still has a ways to go yet.” Smiling mischievously. “Though the hot Bread is to die. Probably because it is the first decent food I’ve had in 6 months. Anyway I am working on a few refinements on both the sensors and your L-comm laser. Have fun kiddies.”
“Admiral?” a small Squeaky voice said from the far side of the bridge.
Jack turned in the hatch and looked around and finely found a little raised hand waving from one of the recessed consoles. “Yes?”
The soft squeaky voice continued. “I am getting another long range transmission from one of the enemy ships but this one seems to be wide beam and in the clear. I can understand most of what is being said.”
“Ok.” Jack walked over to look down at the little woman turned around at her console with one hand to an earpiece looking up at him. “So what are they saying?”
“Just screaming for help sir.” Looking up at Jack she shrugged her shoulders. “The other messages before were mostly local between squadrons with the occasional tight beam crisp messages away from us probably toward the Maze Station from my readings.”
“What other transmissions Ensign? This is the first I have heard of any.”
“Sorry sir but since we could not decipher them, the Comm Chief did not think you would be interested. We had 12 definite sources transmitting when the scout DD’s were first taken out but over the hours of the attacks and captures, 11 transmitters went down, some in the middle of transmissions and we are left with only this one last transmitter Admiral.” Smiling sheepishly up at Jack. “And he is one pissed off Rear Admiral, screaming for reinforcements but so far no one has answered him.” Turning around she tapped her console. “Ops Admiral, someone is answering him now but not in the clear. Looks like it is from the Maze Station Admiral and his transmission just went encrypted.”
Jack shook his head to hungry and tired at the moment to care enough to get pissed, he tapped his wrist Comm. “Captain Clancy. I want the ship to have a new Comm Chief by the time I get done with breakfast and if I ever have to hear about past enemy Comm transmissions from an Ensign on watch again, you will be looking for a new job. I will expect a full report on enemy comm traffic as soon as I get done with breakfast. Out.”
Jack walked off of the bridge and stopped after realizing that no one had made the stupid Captain or Admiral leaving the bridge announcement. Even better than not having to personally fire someone or replace them7p. “You know. I could get used to this.”
-----------------------
Jack and the Lieutenant stopped by the Day cabin so Jack could change out of the big black and red combat suit with the medals that jingled with each step and found the smell of something good wafting in the air. The Marine Terrell came out of the cabins pantry and sat a pot of something steaming down onto the middle of the table that was already set.
“Stroganoff Admiral and I will have a sliced loaf of hot bread out in just a moment. All courtesy of the slave grain we picked up at New Home and some supplies raided from the captured Battleships. We are finally figuring out how to cook with it like old fashion earth wheat. You will have to tell me if you like what I did with it.”
“Well it smells wonderful.” The Lieutenant said as she sat down at the table without waiting for Jack to shuck his suit. Jack followed as his stomach decided the suit could wait.
Jack closed his eyes at the first bite. He did not know what Winslow was talking about the new slave food not being that great. The Stroganoff tasted good enough to be from one of Earths top restaurants or maybe it was the chef. Though Jack realized that after emergency rations for so long, anything half way decent would probably taste great.
Jack started to protest as Terrel took the pot off the table with the extra plate when Jack was just getting ready to refill his plate. “Sorry Admiral but it is not good for you to pig out after eating rations for so long. It will reheat nicely later. Have another slice of bread and I will take that too.”
Jack started to growl at the Marine but really didn’t have the will as he sat back and looked out the cabins bulkhead to bulkhead, deck to overhead window port and the growing squadron of Captured Battleships in the distance with several starting to attach the hulks to their forward shield decks as the DD’s brought them up from the Maze. He realized that several of the DD’s were from the batch they just captured with their high numbers and no Cannons slung underneath. Making him feel glad they were part of his fleet even if they lacked the new engine and big guns. Lazily tapping the comm. “Captain Clancy, have the engineers started upgrading the weapons on our new DD’s yet?”
The Captain turned to the screen facing Jack. “Aaa, Yes Admiral. They only have time for the most basic upgrades to the guns and targeting program and sensors but even that will be a big improvement. They have even added generators in the boat hangers doubling the weapons power. Attaching the two boats to the outside between the cooling fins.”
Jack looked closer and notice the boats where the Captain said they were. “Good. How many of them do we have?”
“Sixteen Admiral. The rest are on their way to New Home for major repairs. I have already talked to New Home and they are sending the scoops and 16/12 guns for them on one of the new armed tramps that volunteered to bring them along with more torpedoes and TB’s that have been completed since the fleet left. Each DD will only be able to handle 2 of the 16/12 inch guns without the engine upgrades but that is still a lot of kick ass Admiral.”
Jack smiled as he watched one battleship rotate about half the turrets Jack could see on the side facing him, to one side away from the growing number of ships. Jack was surprised when they fired them in one salvo out into the cloud. Then slowly one by one, the rest of the turrets started turning to the side as well and one by one they fired into the cloud. The first individual beams coming from invisible turrets on the other side of the ship surprised Jack as they fired randomly as well. Though he could see the bright beams from the muzzles of the guns through the ship as they fired he could not see the turrets turning into place with the rest not giving him any warning before they fired as they were simply cold metal objects until their guns fired.
The other battleships started testing their guns as well and slowly bringing them all on line. Large and small. Jack still could not believe that the Battleships had let so many of their weapons drop off line simple because union rules prevented one worker, even a bot, from doing multiple tasks and then requiring rescheduling onto the bottom of job lists if additional trades or workers or additional equipment was required each time something new was discovered on a job, even in the middle of repairing a weapons system. Even if all the job needed to be completed was one unscheduled worker to push a button, the job was dropped to the bottom of the repair list. With crewman only working a couple hours a day resulted in most simple repairs taking days and even weeks.
“What about the Battleship weapons Captain? How long is it going to take to upgrade their weapons to at least keep them from burning Barrels out after only a few shots?”
“That is a lot of guns Admiral. On
ce we know a gun will fire they will start plugging them to upgrade them but with all the ships we are commissioning we don’t have enough gas to upgrade them all even though we brought quite a bit of the gas with us. We are not diluting it down like the exslaves had to on the Red Pepper when they had a limited supply. The concentrated gas increases the speed of the crystal deposit coating to only a few hours. The reinforcements already headed this way have additional Crystal Gas but I don’t know if they will get here in time to do all the weapons of all the ships. I am just coating the weapons on the 9 Battleships in the best condition right now. The last of them are test firing their weapons now before they start their conversions.”
“Well.” Taking a breath. “While you are at it. Make sure they plenty of foam armor covering the cores. I don’t want their fighters taking our ships out the way we did theirs.”
“I will give them a call now and check Admiral. I have just finished talking to the Firefly and her crews have just finished plugging all the weapon’s barrels to upgrade their guns a few minutes ago and the foam around the cores is half done though they are filling a lot more of the hanger than called for. She will be read for combat in a couple of hours. She is the Battleship in the best condition right now but I am told the other 8 will be in as good of shape in 5 or 6 hours. If they have the time. The others will have to wait for the reinforcements to arrive to finish most of the repairs to their engines making them too slow for combat. But we should have 18 to 27 of them with upgraded weapons by the time the reinforcements arrive depending on how long it takes for the first 9 to finish upgrading. Then a few more hours to repair the engines and we should have a good sized battle fleet to kick the Congressional Earth fleets butt. By your leave Admiral. Out.”
Jack smiled as he watch the slowly growing fleet. With the same crews going back to different ships even using Navy regulations instead of Union rules, Jack was not expecting results this fast. After all the ship’s basic design was not that old since they had only been producing them since the remnants of the fleet had returned from the Rim Battle. Especially with all the automation reducing the crew size needed to what would have previously been a skeleton crew.
Jacks Comm beeped. Still admiring the view and finally too full to move as the little bit of food had caught up to him, Jack lazily tapped the icon on his forearm screen of his Combatsuit.
“Admiral, Captain Coyote here. We have finished mopping up the captured barges and the last of them are being pushed around the 3rd enemy squadron now. We are ready to take the remaining squadrons of ships Admiral. I have a plan to do a fast suit drop from the cloud onto them that should result in the loss of at most 10% of our troops before we land. Less if these gunners are as bad as the rest.” Noticing Jacks face sour at the 10% casualty rate. “Sorry Admiral but this type of drop usually results in at least 3 % and sometimes 5% casualties from accidents even in training. The 10% is only an estimate and includes none lethal casualties. I expect it to be much lower and close to the training figure Admiral. But that is still only a guess.”
“Still you have not had any major casualties so far boarding from boats.”
“I am sorry Admiral but yes we have had 3 deaths so far but that is not unusual for multiple operation this big and strewn out over such a large area. We left all the armored sleds and assault boats back at New Home. The boats we are using are not armored and even though we have been able to approach the ships from relatively safe angles using hulks for cover and even the cloud. Some of the boats have been hit multiple times with small point defense turrets killing a marine and a pilot while the other marine was killed by friendly fire when a weapon accidentally discharged after another marine fell off a balcony in one of the ships rec rooms. It was a pure fluke that the shell traveled clear across the ship to hit the marine dead on. I don’t think I could have made that shot if I had tried and I am rated Marksman. The marine’s weapon fired when he hit and broke his arm landing with his arm and weapon on the corner of a pool after falling 3 decks even through the suit. Damn mess from the word go.”
“What has been unusual so far is the lack of the normal accidents and casualties an operation this size would have produced even without all the live fire. But our problem assaulting the remaining ships is that the ships are fare from anything resembling cover to approach them from. Even assault shuttles would not stand up against 24 inch guns as far as they would have to travel out in the open across the unusually wide corridors where all the remaining ships are keeping themselves with the possibility of multiple 5inch gun and missile hits even if the 24’s manage to miss at point blank range. No, our best bet is to do a High speed Cloud drop. It is possible that most of the ships will not even see the spread out troops before they are down on their hulls. Though if one squadron is able to warn the others through the cloud, that would change fast.”
“Ok, What kind of time line are we looking at Captain. If I remember right we could be looking at several hours just to set up each of the 3 drops.”
“Yes Admiral. A good 6 hours and longerdepending on how long it takes to take each succeeding squadron. Taking out the squadron with 5 ships to begin with and then the smaller squadrons to account for the casualties and the smaller numbers of troops available in each succeeding operation.”
Jack winced at the probable casualties just from packs that would fail to stop some troops in time from impacting the hull of the ships or missed the ships completely. “I take it you are planning on having to take every ship in each squadron at the same time correct?”
“Yes sir. If we miss one it could leave the pack and be twice as hard to take later with it warned.”
“Now that depends on if it wants to surrender or not. I think that if we take out just the ships that do not want to surrender and are threatening the ones that do, we will save time and effort. Time we don’t have and effort that results in casualties. You haven’t had any problems with ships that have struck their colors have you?”
“No sir. Except for a few hard core hold out crewmen we have had to round up but with our combat suits they have not been able to harm any of my marines so far.”
Jack watched as several of the new Battleships got their shit together and started firing full broadsides of all their guns including their point defense guns. One had already started launching targets for the guns to practice hitting. Though their hit rate was still shit. That would improve in time and practice. Which they didn’t have right now with the Battleships having to shut down their guns to upgrade them. Though it looked like these Battleships were going to get as much practice in as they could right now before they shut down to upgrade their guns. After all it looked damn impressive when a Battleship fired all it guns giving the ships crews and the gunners themselves a rush. Jack smiled as more of the Battleships joined in when a Barrel on one of the battleships exploded as Jack watched and a few seconds later another followed and the turret flew out of the side of the ship in a huge geyser as the fully charged capacitor went up with it.
All the battleships stopped firing at once as if a switch had been shut off. The lot of them deciding that target practice could wait until after the guns were upgraded.
Shaking his head he took a deep breath. Play time was over. Jack looked back at the screen with the marine Captain on it. “The problem with your plan is that if one squadron is able to transmit a warning to the other the squadrons the remaining assaults could be disastrous. And I am sorry to find out that all the squadrons Command ships had Long Range Transmitters at one time. We need a way to attack all three Squadrons at the same time. What if you boarded the hold out ships from another battleship close beside? Wouldn’t that cut down time and casualties Captain?”
“Yes sir but assaulting from another ship even at point blank range is still dangerous and getting the transport boats up that close to every ship in those squadrons without getting fired on is problematic. Resulting in a lot more casualties if even one boat is hit and we could lose several easily Admiral! Our
boats would be fucking asteroids!” The Captain blurted out. “Aaa I believe sir.” The Captain tried to back track his criticism of Jack’s ludicrous idea. “Which is why we need to do a Cloud jump Admiral.”
“Listen damn it. Our boats can’t get close, but their boats can. Actually whole squadrons of their boat could if we approach them right.” Jack smiled as he tapped the comm bringing the Ship’s main bridge up next to the Marine Captain. “Captain Murphy. Have you found out which are the hold out Battleships that do not want to surrender yet?”
“Yes Admiral. We have. They are all the flag ship of each squadron and can’t be missed with tons of additional armor and extended Command decks and a hundred main guns instead of 60 making them a lot bigger than the others. Are you going to allow Captain Coyote to do a High Velocity Drop from the Cloud on the Command ships?”
“No. I think it is time for the Enemy reinforcements to show up finally.”
“What?” Both Captain’s mouths dropped open.
Chapter 28; Last of the holdouts
Jack sat in the X-wing fighter’s cockpit as he pulled up around the Battleship as its guns started firing into the cloud across the corner of the passageway. A second and third battleship to the sides and behind the first fired as well. The Three Battleships only had a couple of engines running unlike the 9 including the Firefly in the middle of getting their weapons upgraded. Though they had most of their weapons they still needed a lot of repairs before they were truly combat ready but for this operation they only needed to look good and the damage simply made them look more like a relief force.
The DD’s had bored a hole through the cloud to position the three battleships well down the passageway from the largest of the remaining squadrons. Two other captured battleship groups had done the same down the passageways leading to the other squadrons and were shooting up their own passageways making a show that all three remaining Congressional Communist squadrons could detect through the cloud even though communication was impossible. Jack was hoping that the show would convince all three Squadron Commanders that a major relief force had been sent up from the Staging Station for them and allow them to approach without questions. Though Jack was already having second thoughts about the whole mater.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 109
