“Well that was expected. Hopefully we will be gone by the time they get their asses wiped and head this way.”
“Admiral, Tactical. A squadron is pulling away from the Station and headed for the entrance to this corridor. 6 Battleships Admiral.”
“Admiral, Captain Clancy. We have a squadron headed this way. I need to undock and jettison the DD’s. We cannot fire our 16 inch gun turrets with them in the way.”
“No Captain. Stay docked. We have to keep the plasma flowing. You have the God Guns to take out the Squadron. You do not need the 16’s. Stay docked and fight your ship. Between our two ships, the Squadron does not stand a chance since they have to come around the knuckle to target us presenting their broadsides. Just stand fast and keep your head Captain.”
The other Captain was on the line a few seconds later. Jack giving her permission to undock a few minutes before the squadron arrived so she could present her bow to the targets allowing her to use all her guns.”
“Comm, get me an open channel to the Commander of the squadron headed this way.”
A big woman with her blouse fastened choking tight around her neck sat in a Command Chair looking out at Jack. “What the hell do you want boy? We will be their shortly to accept your surrender.”
“Sorry but I heard that you have orders to slaughter me and my squadron. I don’t think I want to surrender anymore. You come within range of my guns and I will destroy your ships. That is unless you want to surrender to me. I have put the crews of the ships I have taken already around the Maze, on the storage station here to return them to Earth’s custody and will do the same to you. Oh wait you have orders to kill your own survivors don’t you. Sorry even though I can’t believe you would do that. Maybe the Admiral will be nicer to you. Turn around now and live Commodore. I will be leaving as soon as I finish repairs.” Jack cut the connection not waiting for an answer.
Jack spent a few seconds punching icons on his screen. “Cain, I need you to feed the maximum plasma they can receive to 37 DD’s that are the closest to being ready. Just in case we have to pull out to fight this squadron we will have some ready to go.”
Cain appeared in front of Jack. “Admiral, we can supply 41 at the maximum rate they can accept.”
“Yes I know but I like to keep a reserve just in case a few can take more or there turns out to be a few leaks. How is the initiators coming along?”
“We will be ready to test them as soon as the first Plasma Batteries are ready.”
“Good, screw the tests and just light the damn things off. We are running out of time.”
“That may not be a good idea Admiral. We cannot find any spare initiators. The ones we are putting back in the cores are the only ones we can find on the station or the DD’s. If they are not tuned perfectly before trying to start fusion, the Initiators would be damaged or destroyed.”
“Well shit. Well we have plenty on the Red Pepper as well as the Battleship.”
“I am sorry Admiral but both the Red Pepper and the Battleship’s Initiators are the wrong size. They cannot be used on the smaller cores the DD’s are equipped with. They would most likely blow up the ships.”
“Shit house blues.” Jack took a deep breath as he glanced at the tactical showing the dozens of DD’s he had sent up the Maze busy doing what they were supposed to do and just intercepting the Relief fleet. “Take out the initiators from the DD’s docked to the Red Pepper as spares. We can… We can replace them later.”
“Admiral, Captain Clancy. We show fighters coming this way. I need to jettison these damn DD’s or we have only the Point defenses on the fins.”
“No Captain.” Jack looked out the Bridge ports at the rows of DD’s lined up along the Red Peppers hull. “Open up the ships Plasma lines to each DD. We will use the DD’s Point defenses including the 8 inch guns. They should do a number on the fighters as well as the sides of the Battleships as they come round the corner.”
“But Admiral. The lines were not designed to handle that load.”
“Yes they will be fine. We still have a few minutes you can use to charge their Plasma batteries. That will help supply some of the flow the weapons need and then recharge them between attacks. Get on it Captain we are running out of time.”
The Achilles suddenly left its dock and headed over to one side of the open bay away from the station. Jack had been expecting the Captain to do that after another 10 minutes but not this soon. “Cain how does that effect our recharge?”
“I have cut plasma flow back to 20 ships Admiral.”
“Fuck.” Jack hit his comm for the battleship but then canceled it. They were not even sure the damn initiators were going to work. He knew it was standard procedure to have 10 initiators aboard a ship for each Core so the damn station should have had thousands of them not to mention the DD’s. Which meant that they were left off deliberately. ‘Why take all of them and only leave one set. They have enough of everything else to choke horse. Though why you would want to choke a horse was beyond him. Something else his Grandfather used to say. “Cain, I want to see one of those initiators you pull off the ship’s DD’s. And see what tests you can do on one as well. Even if you have to destroy it. Something is wrong here.”
Two hundred fighters screamed around the corner and into the Bay insight of the Station, the Achilles and the Red Peppers guns. Few lasted more than a minute.
Twelve minutes later the initiator was delivered by a silver bot as the first Battleship slipped around the corner broadside. “Hold your God Gun’s fire Captain. Jack said for the fifth time in less than a minute. The first ship was quickly followed by a second and third then a forth. As quickly as that. The 60 guns of the battleship Achilles knowing exactly where to hit them spread its fire across all four ships. Two fusion cores exploded at the same time knocking the other two ships for a spin saving their lives as the first shots aimed at their cores missed. Without hesitation the guns that had been targeting the two ships that were now fireballs switched to the two remaining ships. With the help of the 8 inch guns on the Red Pepper at point blank range neither ship completed a single rotation before every gun had been knocked out on both ships. Jack ordered the guns to stop firing as the two remaining live Congressional battleships slipped around the corner with their bows pointed at the battleship they could see some ways away from the station. Their shots tearing into the battleships bow. A hundred and twenty guns literally tore the front bow deck to pieces in a matter of seconds and then they came in sight of the Red Pepper.
“You may fire you main guns now Captain.” Two of the four God Guns already extended out onto their arms, fired at the same time. Only a quick burst from the Red Pepper’s engines kept them from tearing the ship off of the station. The beams from of the guns hit the bow of each of the two Congressional Battleships and tore down through the center of the armored decks like they were paper. Punching down through the core at a slight angle they each hit one of the ship’s fusion cores running at full power supplying the weapons. Both ships ceased to exist within milliseconds of each other.
Closing his eyes for a second even though the ports darkened blocking out most of the blinding light, Jack turned to the bot with the initiator and started examining it. From what he could see it looked like every other initiator he had ever seen except for size and the military part numbers on the side.
Some five minutes later with Jack not finding anything obviously wrong with the Initiator Winslow screamed. “Admiral, the Achilles is firing.”
Jack looked up at where he expected the Achilles to be back at the station. “What?” Looking around trying to find it where it had been during the battle. “Where the hell is it?”
And then he caught a flash out of the corner of his eyes and whipped around to see it out in the middle of the inlet’s entrance. “They have blown up two more Battleships around the Station Admiral and targeting 5 more that are broadside to them. Most are turning toward the entrance Admiral and starting to return fire.”
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nbsp; Kicking himself for getting sidetracked on the damn Initiator and not noticing the stupid move the Achilles Captain was pulling. Jack watched another battleship blow up when its core was breached. It was too late to call the Achilles back as hundreds of 24 inch beams started streaking past the Battleship. All he could do was support it as best as they could.
“Firing its second volley of 12 torpedoes Admiral.”
Jack hit his Comm. “Captain fire torpedoes and hand them over to the Achilles for targeting. Fire as many as they can handle. Do not fire our God Guns. We are facing the wrong way and their kick will tear us off the station. Prepare to undock and turn the ship to fire through the cloud. But wait for my orders.”
“It is about time.” Came the reply. 5 seconds later the Red Pepper broke away from the station leaving a stream of plasma between the two clouding out into the vacuum. The stream cut out a second later.
Another ship blew up that had been docked on the station, vaporizing a large round section into the side of the stations docks. The number of beams streaking back around the Achilles was growing rapidly.
“Damn it Captain, I did not order you to undock yet.” The Red Pepper slowly pulled away as it turned to bring all its weapons to bear. Jack shaking his head. “Now we are not attached to the Station Captain you may open fire with the God Guns and 16/8’s when ready.”
“Thank you Admiral. Launching recon torpedoes to the opening and through the cloud. I do not think the Achilles is going to last much longer Admiral.” The 4 big God guns let loose shoving the bow back around as side thrusters counter fired.
Jack looked back at the battleship with most of its armored decks that had been turned into cargo decks already blown away as cargo containers drifted away to the sides. More and more of what was now a thousand beams that had been missing it started to hit. Swallowing, he wanted to tell them to run but he knew that was impossible. The Captain had sealed the Battleship’s fate when he pulled out there. 12 more torpedoes streaked from the Battleship without even one being hit by the some 1500 beams that were now targeting the doomed ship. The time between shots the only thing that was stretching out the ships existence.
More torpedoes from the Red Pepper streaked out around the corner. Jack wondering what they were targeted on. Hoping it was not the damn armored decks that was all that was visible now after the last Congressional ships broadside to them blew up leaving only armored decked bows. Then wondering what its rapidly reducing number of guns were targeting since there was no way the ship could beat down enough Battleship decks to take even one ship out in the time it had left.
“Remind me to put decent side thrusters on these damn things.” Jack shook his head in frustration and then grimaced. “Winslow, can you tell me what the Achilles is targeting?”
“The Station now Admiral. They are tearing up the command section of the station. Torpedoes are already hitting specific sections in the crew quarters tagged as enforcer troops.”
An explosion from one of the battleships with its bow facing them got Jacks attention through the cloud. He knew the big guns had not yet finished recharging. “They are targeting the cores? I can’t believe they have torpedo warheads that powerful.”
“Actually they are using the new black hole torpedoes targeting a little forward of where the armored sections meets the weapons section. The Congressional ships do not have their navigation shields on which makes sense I guess since they are not going far. I think the Achilles is trying to destroy the command Bridge with the forward weapons while leaving the crews quarters relatively unharmed. Our torpedoes are the ones hitting the station.”
Suddenly dozens of explosions engulfed the Battleships as more and more of the torpedoes started getting through as 4 more beams streaked out from the Red Pepper to destroy two more Battleships.
Hitting his Comm. “Captain, cease fire immediately.”
“Damn it Admiral we have to destroy them before the Achilles dies.”
“The Achilles died the minute it moved out into plain sight of the Congressional Fleet instead of returning to the Station as ordered. They are now trying to chop the head off of as many of the Congressional Battleships as possible instead of destroying them which would be easy to do. We will let them try as long as the damn fleet stays on the other side of the Bay and pray she gets lucky.”
Jack looked at the Achilles just as another salvo of torpedoes left it and then 6 huge beams streaked past with one going through the ship that only had some 8 guns still firing.
“What the hell were those?”
“The Stations Self-defense guns Admiral. Evidentially they finely got them working.”
“Captain, target our torpedoes on the station’s self-defense guns.”
“Can’t Admiral we have no targeting from the Achilles any longer and the targeting remotes are not yet in place.”
Jack looked up at the Achilles when the firing clock hit zero as 4 of 6 beams from the station hit the Battleship that was already looking like a hulk. The Battleship Achilles simple fell apart into several pieces as a thousand beams streaked past and into the remaining sections.
Cain appeared in front of Jack as he stared at the drifting sections of the wreck. Life boats started leaving the hulk. Several of the lifeboats disappearing as beams hit them as Jack watched.
“Admiral I have finished the tests on the initiators.”
“Captain Clancy launch a life boat beacon up the corridor well into the edge of the cloud.” Jack looked over at Cain.
“They are defective and designed to initiate a fusion explosion if they are ever used.”
“I don’t call that defective Cain. I call that deliberate sabotage.” Taking a deep breath as he glanced at the large tactical screen showing the 16 inch gunned DD’s and all the recovered DD’s with their 8 inch guns he had sent up the Maze that had plenty of good initiators on them. Jack turned to the still open screen to Captain Clancy. “Captain. Get the ship docked where we can still use the God Guns, we have to start evacuating the station.”
The Captain gave Jack a disbelieving look as Jack squinted from another Battleship blowing up in the distance in front of him from a torpedo strike.
“The initiators for the DD cores have been tampered with to create a fusion bomb if we try to start one of them. We are going to have to evacuate, get new Fusion Initiators and come back later for the rest.”
Two of the six monster 48inch beams hit the floating sections of the remains of the Achilles with the mass of 24inch beams taking out several more life boats as they tried to escape as the rain of beams continued.
“Very well Admiral we will be docked in about 5 minutes. Have the crews ready.”
“Cain, I am going to have to rely on you to make sure everyone gets off that Station.”
Twenty-four inch beams started streaking past the station. Only half the ships remained but that was still a lot of firepower that was quickly being directed in the direction of the station. They could not target the station directly but they knew where it was approximately and all it took was a couple of hits with some kind of response to know when they were finally on target to direct the rest of them.
Jack hit his comms. “All Personnel on all DD’s and the Station. The Initiators on the DD’s have been tampered with and will blow the cores and the ships if you use them to try to start your Cores. Destroy all current Initiators and prepare to abandon the DD’s on the Station. The Red Pepper will be docking with the station in 4 minutes. Do not panic, crowd or rush. The ship will be loaded according to nearest DD first in an orderly manner. We have plenty of time to get everyone off the station loaded by ship. Admiral Turner out.”
Jack turned to his Adjunct. “Commander Morgan, I need you to have the tugs I saw moving the DD’s to the ship earlier, grab as many of the DD’s as possible and head up our attack corridor. How many Tugs are there anyway?”
“There are a dozen Admiral but if we use our boats docked inside the DD’s boat bays once the tugs have the Sh
ip away from the station, I think we can grab another couple dozen DD’s.”
“Very well, we will be docking at the end where the Achilles was docked. I want you to start taking the DD’s from the center of the station and work this way. Got that?”
“Yes sir, Admiral.” Commander Morgan turned back to his console.
Jack hit the Comm again. “All DD’s and crewmen. We are docking in place of the Achilles to start loading from the closest DDs. The 12 DD’s docked starting at the junction at the center of the Station will be departing the station using tugs. The next 12 DD crews closest to those DD’s will double up on the DD’s getting ready to leave. Follow your down loaded directions to your evacuation ship. If everyone follows directions and keep their head’s, we will get all of you off the Station. For the fighter crews. As soon as we leave the station, your squadrons will stop shooting and follow us out. That is all. Turner out.”
“Admiral, the new wave of fighters have taken out our recon torpedo’s that went around the bend. We only got a few seconds of Intel before they were knocked out. We have about 500 enemy fighters starting to arrive 5 minutes out. We also have 14 Battleships left that are staying close to the Staging Station that are now targeting the DD storage Station and us.”
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 121
