Jack stared out of what was left of the Flag Bridge with most of the cooling/landing fin destroyed around him. Even his cabin with its battleship models and the conference compartment only 50 feet away completely destroyed and open to space. Except for a few of the flush turrets with most of their gun barrels sliced off short and a few sections of container rails along the stern, the jagged sections of the blasted Flag Bridge was the only thing left standing on the outside of the hull of the entire ship.
Then as the Red Pepper penetrated deeper and deeper into the cloud there were three rapid fusion explosions from what he hoped were battleships and then nothing. Making it obvious to Jack that all the DD’s had been destroyed.
Jack stared out through the jagged holes in the ports around the destroyed Flag Bridge at the battlespace far to the side of the Red Pepper with tears running down his cheeks as he fought the knotted muscles in his neck and chest to breathe. Half the Red Peppers crew whom he had gotten to know quite well over the last 8 months and had looked up to him to keep them safe, were now dead and tens of thousands of crewmen he had tried to save were dead alongside them all because he could not accept the reality of War.
That his innocent crewmen died simply because of where they happened to be located. Trying to run a battle as well as a War to keep from killing innocent people or even crews had just cost even more casualties on both sides and may even have cost humans the war with the God Spider Battleships. In way too many cases, recorded history had shown that not attacking with overwhelming force and the best available weapons and tactics when the opportunity presented itself, had lost many battles and wars that could have been won. In this case by turning the only ship that stood a chance of defeating a Spider Battleship into a hulk trying to save a few lives that died anyway, Jack knew his stupidity had lost humanity the war against the spiders. He had witnessed the death of the Red Pepper and the Republic Fleet and the eventual enslavement of humanity. It was all his fault and somehow his body had survived though his mind hadn’t.
Eventually Damage control parties had reached the Flag Bridge with Jack still strapped in his Command Chair and Chump standing behind and to one side waiting to for orders. Jack was gently lifted out of his Command Chair and off of what was little better than a jagged skeleton of a few bulkhead sections, a deck and clear panels sticking up some 50 feet above the hull forming a pedestal that amounted to a half dozen girders that was all that remained of the fin. Inside the ship his helmet was retracted back into his collar and a familiar face stared down into his tear filled staring eyes as something was injected into his suit’s injection port and blackness took Jack. Though he had stopped seeing long before.
Chapter 32; Total Defeat
We are now well on the way of having an additional 54 new upgraded DD’s with a single Ion Battleship engine for propulsion with 4, 24/16 inch guns slung under their wings and 8, 8/6 inch gun turrets still with the lower 8 inch turret moved to the outer wing replacing one of the lower 5 inch turrets with that 5 inch turret moved out to the wing tip in one of the old mass tanks with a couple of 5 inch turrets from the battleships. They should be joining the DD fleet in a few weeks. All with crystal linings and double the power. More will be joining the fleet as they are salvaged and rebuilt at New Home.”
Jack felt something on his lips as his body was hugged but it felt so far away, so distant. Like it was not his body. “Which we will be arriving at in two days. The TF-58 Battletransports that are missing most of their forward weapons and personnel decks, arrived at New Home days ago and have already started refitting into your upgraded Battletransports with new cargo bows and the extended container rails and half their engines are going to the DD’s. The Rest of TF-58’s Battleships will be arriving at the Station today where they will lose most of their guns and half their engines as well as they are converted to Battletransports. All the captured Battleships from the Maze battle are stretched out around the Red Pepper as we make our slow way to New Home. They are refusing to leave our escort. But the engineers are well on the way to designing their conversions into Battletransports. You are going to have to get your butt out of bed to see the new design and decide if there are any changes you want to make besides using the extra armor to add wider decks and lengthening the ships to handle more cargo. They are also arguing about turning the command ships into carriers instead of cargo Transports. With most of TF-58 already there and all the Construction bots already shipped to New Home working full time, everything should be ready to go after the food stores at Q-19 in a month or less.”
Then Jack could hear the Lieutenant talking to a nurse but paid no attention to it. He could barely comprehend what the Lieutenant had already said even though something inside of him had made him listen to her even if it did not make sense at first. All he could remember or think of were all the lives he had ended with his stupidity. The crewmen he had killed along with the Red Pepper. Of the failure his Destroyers had turned out to be. Of failing the human race and condemning the few human survivors to slavery as well as the exslaves to death when they were captured again.
Then the lieutenant turned back to Jack placing her had on his chest and head as she smoothed back his hair. And then her lips touched his again and a spark jumped between her lips and his forcing her to let out a little squeal. “Damn Babe. That is the second time that has happened since I got here today. Though it was not as bad as the shock I got a few minutes ago when I first came in. Now that was a big surprise. I wonder if one of your monitors have a short circuit or something? Though if that was the case you should be shocking my hands as well and not just my lips. You getting allergic to me or something?”
The shock of her touching lips getting his attention again even though he had already retreated back deep down into himself while she had turned away for a few second. The shock forcing him to listen whether he wanted to hear or not. “We expect to be ready to assault Victory Station at Q-19 in about a month which I know was not your plan so we need you to wake up. You remember Victory Station don’t you? Q-19, the primary Supply Transfer and Storage station for all cargo coming into the Cloud at the North end. About as far away from where everyone thinks The Rock is as you can get. It is also the closest entry to the Cloud from Earth. We spent enough time there when we were on the Red Dwarf. Or at least I did. I don’t know about you since I did not even know you were on the damn ship back then but knowing you, you spent most of your time on the ship. Anyway they have damn near half a hundred old Battleships and hundreds of Transports and the last thing we need to be doing is starting a battle there. So wake up already.” She shook him a little rubbing his chest. “Though with all the new up armed Battleships if he gets his way about not making them into Battletransports and well over a hundred DD’s so fare, Admiral Spencer is all ready to go in shooting so you best get your ass up out of that bed before we really do lose half the fleet.”
Jack recognized the distant voice as the Lieutenant’s but it was so far away, so distant. ‘But they only had a couple of squadrons of DD’s before the slaughter. Not… Oh yes, we had just picked up some 100 DD’s at the… No… they all had been destroyed along with half the Red Peppers crew because he had fucked up trying to save those that were already dead… and tens of thousands of crewmen he had tried to rescue had been killed as well trying to defect. Caught trapped in lifeboats and slaughtered. All because of him. All while losing the only God Guns the Republic had along with getting the Red Dwarf turned into a hulk. He had doomed the human race to slavery with his stupidity.’ Jack started slipping away again. Falling into an endless pit.
Her touch on his chest gently shaking him again got his subconscious attention. “Anyway, the crewmen you assigned to the DD’s we took out from under the noses of The Rock’s Staging Station at the Maze are refusing to return to the Red Pepper or give up their DD’s unless you order them to which is slowing repairs on the Red Pepper. Captain Clancy is pissed but the Admiral won’t overrule your orders. Saying that the Red Pepper
will be repaired when it reaches New Home and that the DD crews need the training. I can’t believe we only lost a dozen DD’s in that mess and none of the Red Pepper’s crewmen you put in Command. Thank god you designed some tough little ships. We were able to recover and salvage most of the ones that were hit and their crews. You should see them training now. Captain Custer or actually Commodore Custer since he was a Commodore or Rear Admiral when you rescued him from a Spider Battleship, is training their butts off 16 hours a day drilling and attacking everything that moves. He has already canned a dozen Captains that did not shape up to his satisfaction.”
‘What? The Red Pepper’s crew he assigned to the DD’s are still alive? How the hell… He watched them all die. Proving that his belief that the DD’s could take on Battleships was fucking wrong. He was a failure. Yes… he watched them die didn’t he? Most of them right? Come to think of it… There was a group that stayed together as a squadron the way he had trained them while the rest ran around with their heads cut off getting themselves killed. Did that really happen? No. come to think of it that squadron did seem to be growing bigger as time went. No two squadrons. Now he remembered seeing two groups of DD’s toward the end making coordinated attacks. Could that be why he saw fewer and fewer DD’s running around by themselves as they joined back up with the squadron instead of being destroyed? Did the experience of watching the other lone DD’s die kick some sense into their heads? It is hard to tell how large a rapidly moving mass of anything is with simple glances. No! He saw so many DD’s getting hit and blowing up. Most of the DDs must have been destroyed.’ Sadness started to overwhelm him at the loss of so many good crewmen for no good reason. Because of his stupidity.
Then another spark leaped between his lips and the lieutenants and he realized that some of the smaller fusion explosions could have been cooling Battleship cores after they had been scrammed and jettisoned and not the small DD cores. Then the thought of Commodore Custer doing exactly what he had hoped and taking over Command of all the DD’s and forging them into a fighting force made Jack’s spirits rise. Custer had refused to relieve Jack when he had been rescued but that explained why the lieutenant was saying most of the DD’s survived. Including the DD’s he saw show up just before he lost sight of the battle as the Red Pepper’s hulk disappeared into the cloud.
The Lieutenant continued. “MMM. I am starting to like that little shock each time I kiss you.” Jack got another hug. “After our other DD’s including the reinforcements from New Home including a couple thousand fighters and bombers from the Battletransports and Bulk prison ship turned into a Bomber Carrier arrived down from the head and joined the battle it was all over. Custer took over command of them all and was responsible for destroying, putting out of commission or severely damaging the majority of the Battleships and the Carriers before the fleet made it to the station. Though after they stopped killing lifeboats the Commander stopped the attack and let them go. We even captured a couple of the damn Carriers that had stayed to fare up the corridor far from the battle. What is amazing is that while most of the surviving Congressional ships reached the Station, most of their crews abandoned the Battleships in lifeboats after the Commodore made it clear that he would destroy any ship that fired on them. Though that took destroying three Battleships in a matter of a seconds that fired on the lifeboats the Congressional Battleships were ejecting before the rest took him serious. We even have tens of thousands from the Station and their families. Our Battletransport and Marine Assault Transports docked with the Station and took them off right under the noses of the Congressional Battleships. You would not believe how packed most of the Battletransports were when they finely left the Station even using the damn cargo container rails you added to their hulls grabbing salvaged containers from the destroyed transports along with most of their surviving crews. They also managed to grab some 20,000 tons of food (though that won’t last long with half a million mouths to feed), along with a couple million tons of supplies and equipment from the Station itself over several days. Admiral Custer pulling them out from the Station and the Entrance Bay back into the Maze just as reinforcements from The Rock started showing up.”
The Lieutenant chuckled. “All while the 30 odd surviving Congressional Battleships looked on from the main entry corridor to The Rock where they had retreated when we took the Station. Oh and get this. They stripped The Rock of everything that could fight. Most of the reinforcements that showed up were Republic crewed old Fleet Battleships that refused to chase us into the Maze and hundreds of DD’s that follow us into the Maze and promptly joined our little fleet. Then the Republic Battleships refused to send new crewmen over to the Congressional Battleships unless they replaced the Congressional Captain and Officers. Most of the Congressional ships are still sitting dead in the Bay with the Officers trying to figure out how to repair them with most of their crews including the bots gone.”
The Lieutenant kissed Jack’s cheek dragging what his subconscious had heard out for him to look at. “You using the Red Pepper to delay the enemy until the reinforcements you ordered could arrive and join the fight and win the Battle is the reason the damn Attack Fleet headed to destroy TF-58 was recalled to guard the wrecked Congressional Staging Station to The Rock as well as the few remaining Congressional Battleships there before our crews could finish taking the other Battleships around the station. But we got most of them so we have more battleships than we know what to do with right now.” Hugging Jack again. “No, after defeating the remnants of the Congressional fleet at the Staging Station. Admiral Spencer is not about to break the DD squadron up unless you order it. Even if it has grown a bit big and well past the size of a couple of Wings. You have to decide what we are going to do with the DD’s from The Rock. From what I am hearing, with all the repairs needed on all the Battleships we captured and all the work that is needed on the station as well as the city on the surface, no one but the DD crews wants to worry about upgrading the additional DD’s from The Rock right now. Hell they can’t even decide what needs done first so I am afraid nothing is getting done with the Factories being put back to making more factory cores instead of repair parts or construction materials. Hell everyone is off doing their own thing.”
The Lieutenant chuckled. “Anyway we are scheduled to meet the Admiral and the Black Dwarf in a week when they get to New Home. He has a repair dock reserved for the Red Pepper on the Black Dwarf. If Pan leaves him anything to repair. Though there is nothing they can do to replace the Godguns. So you better get your butt out of bed and quit lollygagging around. You have guns to replace, a station to raid to feed your starving crews and decisions to make about what to do with a couple hundred thousand new recruits from the Congressional fleet. Not to mention whether to keep expanding New Home or start branching out to other mining sights around the bubble. You are lucky you have not had to listen to that heated debate yet. Oh and don’t forget about old Ditzen at the Gama 13 Station. He is fit to be tied after Pan took most of his Station away from him. It seems what was left only needs a Captain to Command and not a full 2 star Vice Admiral.” She chuckled. “Though he should have realized that when you sent the signed Papers over to him to sign himself but he was in such a hurry he not only signed them but got plenty of witnesses before he sent them to The Rock. A real shame he had not felt like sticking his head off the Flag Decks before he took official Command. From what I hear we should have been there when he discovered he had taken command of little more than the Flag Decks, a few Troop Decks for guarding the hole in the bubble, a few shipping docks, a small mining complex and the Agriculture Bubble which is at full production supplying mostly the Ex-slave grains for what little bread we are getting and the gruel mush for the emergency life pills.”
Jack felt a hand pat his arm and then start rubbing his chest again as he felt someone breathing on his cheek then kiss his cheek. At least he thought it was his chest and cheek but it felt so far away. Like someone else’s body far, far away. He thought he should be ups
et about that but he wasn’t. Fact was, he was starting to feel or think better of himself at finding out that he had not murdered most of his crew and tens of thousands of others. But then he was not sure. How could that be possible after watching the carnage with his own eyes? He was just so tired.
“Pan has a bone to pick with you, after dumping over 100,000 half starved to death TF-58 crewmen in her lap and now you are showing up with an additional couple hundred thousand crewmen from the Battleships, Transports and Staging Station along with their families without warning. I still can’t believe the majority of the life boats made it out of that mess thanks to you opening the comms to the fleet in the middle of the battle getting the reinforcement Battleships attention and then the DD’s keeping the fighters busy while killing them and some of the battleships. Hell, even most of the life boats from the battleships the DD’s killed or damaged managed to make it to the cloud with our fighters and bombers running out into the Bay to grab them until Custer took command of the reinforcements and put a stop to the Battleships trying to slaughter the lifeboats once and for all. Oh and we did not lose as many crewmen on the DD Storage Station as we thought. Only about 100 crewmen and not a thousand, though the thousands of enemy crewmen that were left on the station died. It is still a shame but we didn’t kill them. Hell the Congressional fleet or what was left of it was even killing their own lifeboats headed for the Maze Staging Station the damn fools. Their own crews. That is until Commodore Custer put a stop to it as well.” The Lieutenant said disgustedly. “We even managed to grab most of the cargo tanks with DD repair parts in them that had been blasted away from the Station when its core went up. Evidentially it had already scrammed when it was hit and the explosion had not been as big as it looked. Even most of the DD’s left behind survived with the ones with crews that had stayed behind refusing to abandon them, able to make it to the life boat beacon using the plasma we had loaded onto them before we started abandoning the station. Most receiving generators from the other DD’s until the Transport Bombers arrived with good initiator coils and started lighting off the cores of the DD’s.”
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 127
