He watched Lieutenant Barrett hustle out and felt like he was making the right choice. At least he hoped he was.
"Ensign Jillian Davis, reporting as ordered," his operations officer said, coming to attention in front of his desk.
"Ensign Davis," he said, watching as Celesta walked into the room and leaned against the rear bulkhead as the hatch slid closed. "Hell of a day, wasn't it?" he asked, not offering to let her stand at ease or sit down.
"It was indeed, sir," she said, still staring at the spot directly over his head.
"Some of us performed better than others," Jackson said, leaning back. "You just saw Lieutenant Barrett leave. Did he look happy?"
"No, Captain, he did not."
"That's because when tested in the crucible of combat, he cracked," Jackson said, his voice even. "Not everyone is fit to serve on a warship, wouldn't you say?"
"I ... would have to agree, sir," Davis said with uncertainty in her voice.
"Take that ensign bar off your uniform, Davis," Jackson said with a dramatic sigh. To her credit, she reached up and tugged off her rank insignia without so much as a twitch of her eye, though Jackson could see the red flush creeping up her neck.
"Commander Wright, did you get what I asked for?" Jackson asked.
"I did," she said simply, putting a silver bar in his outstretched hand. He walked around the desk, standing to Davis' side as she stood at attention, still staring forward.
"For exceptional performance of duties and gallantry in the face of the enemy, you are hereby promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade," Jackson said, pinning the bar on her right collar. The ship's crest was still on the left. "XO, note the time and date in the ship's log."
"Yes, sir."
"At ease," Jackson said, smiling slightly as Davis reached up to touch her new bar. "Congratulations, Lieutenant Davis."
She looked like she was about to try and put her arms around Jackson and hug him before her military bearing took over again and she straightened up. The move didn't go unnoticed by Commander Wright as her right eyebrow went up a tick.
"Thank you, Captain," Davis said, shaking his hand instead. "I won't let you down."
"I'm sure you won't," he said, smiling indulgently. "Now get your ass back to your station and review the sensor logs. Find me something useful. Dismissed."
Lieutenant Davis spun smartly on her heel and exited the office with a certain bounce in her step.
"Interesting time to be doing field promotions," Celesta remarked. "Complete with a little hazing to boot."
"To be honest, Commander, we'll probably all be dead within a day so I figure it couldn't hurt for at least one person on this ship to be happy," he said, sinking back into his chair.
"Not much optimism? Even after the mag-cannons did so much damage?" she asked.
"Realism trumps optimism every time," he sighed. "The math isn't on our side. Even if we pumped the rest of the shells in the magazines into that monster we simply aren't carrying enough destructive force aboard to kill it. It's just too big. There's also the fact that it's been learning after every engagement, adapting even. I don't think we'll have the same luck if we meet again."
"Which begs the question: Why are we still chasing it?"
"As long as we can provide some cover for Podere I'm willing to stay," Jackson said. "If it makes a move to leave the system we'll reevaluate the situation."
She made no move to leave despite having no further protests to air out.
"Was there something else, Commander?"
"What were you doing before the mag-cannons came online, sir?"
Jackson tried to stare her down, but when she wouldn't budge he shrugged his surrender. "I may have not been completely honest when I said there weren't any nukes aboard," he said. "There are, in fact, four. Four very big ones."
"You mean the main reactors," she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Very good, Commander," he said with a nod. "There is a procedure that isn't in any Fleet manual or technical data for the Raptor-class ships. It's something that's passed down orally to each captain when he, or she, assumes command. It was a backdoor left by the designers to be used in only the most dire of emergencies.
"There is a way to disable all the safeties on the reactors and send them critical. It happens quite fast if you also shut down the pumps for the cooling jackets."
"I see," she said, emotionless. "And you'd have been willing to blow the Blue Jacket up to stop that ship?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"Good," she said, pushing herself off the bulkhead. "I will admit to worrying that you may have been doing this for the wrong reasons before."
"But not now?" Jackson asked.
"Not now," she confirmed. "I'll see you on the bridge, Captain."
After she'd left and the hatch sealed he stared up at the ceiling for a moment, slightly confused by the exchange. The mag-cannons had been an utter stroke of luck, but he couldn't deny how good it had felt seeing those shells ripping the port side of that ship apart. They were still seven hours away from Podere, but the enemy ship was only four hours away. He wasn't sure how it had actually been killing planets, but he hoped it wasn't something that could be accomplished in a few hours.
With the short respite in the battle he'd ordered the crews to get rested and fed and took care of some light administrative work, like promotions, to keep himself busy and try to raise the spirits of the crew a bit. Celesta had taken the liberty of piping the sensor feed of the mag-cannons shredding into the enemy ship to all the departments. The more he'd thought about it the more he liked the idea. At least give the technicians in the lower decks some hope that they'd come through this, even if their captain had none for himself.
****
"Captain, I might have something for you," Lieutenant Davis said as soon as he stepped back onto the bridge.
"Good news?" Jackson asked.
"It's ... news," she said evasively. He walked over behind her station to see what she was talking about, ignoring the clear regulation violations in the form of personal photos lining one side of the console.
"Show me what you've got."
"I began looking over all the high-res optical data we collected on the enemy ship between engagements," she said. "Here is a still shot after the Avengers opened its nose up during that first pass."
"Right," Jackson said impatiently. "So?"
"Here's another shot of that same area," she said, pulling up another image. "This was as it made its approach during the last engagement."
"What the hell?" Jackson muttered, squinting at the image.
"That's not been repaired, Captain," she said. "It was ... healed."
"The implications of this are somewhat profound. And disturbing," Jackson remarked.
"I would say so," Davis said. "This ship, or at least its hull, is an organic compound that shows signs of being alive."
"This mission is getting more bizarre by the minute," Jackson complained under his breath. "Log this data and put it in on the secure server. This changes nothing, so keep it quiet for now ... I don't need a damn philosophical debate in the middle of a battle, and even if that ship is 'alive' it has still killed millions of humans."
"Yes, sir."
"Make sure you tag the data where you can find it quickly," he said, still keeping his voice down. "I'm going to have you launch another com drone right before our next round with this thing. The data is going to a specific address that I'll give you in a moment, not to CENTCOM."
"Sir?"
"It's ... complicated," he said. "Just believe me when I say that if we're going to get any help with this we need to stay off the main channels for now."
"Yes, sir."
"One more thing," Jackson said, leaning back away from her console. "Finish your analysis of the ship, but then I need you to put that knowledge to practical use. Put together a targeting package and send it over to Tactical. Even with the unique features we're seeing in this hull material I would assume t
hat port side is still blasted open. We want to put more shells into that if it'll let us."
They were still two hours away from Podere when the news went from bad to worse.
"We're getting a burst of com traffic from the planet," Lieutenant Keller reported. "Some trying to contact the com drone platform, two specifically to us, and a jumble of calls for help over the general band."
"Is the alien ship firing on the surface?" Jackson asked.
"No, sir," the officer said, the dread evident in his voice. "If I'm understanding this correctly it's landing troops at every major settlement in the eastern hemisphere."
"Helm! Full emergency acceleration," Jackson called out. "Tactical, start getting your targeting scripts loaded and ensure the mag-cannons are ready to fire."
After a pair of confirmations the ship began to rumble violently as she strained past her designers' limits.
"OPS, give the helm real-time updates on the target as we get closer," Jackson said, swaying slightly on the harshly vibrating deck. "We may only get one pass at this, and it will be a small targeting window. We can't afford to waste the time it will take to decelerate to be able to enter orbit over Podere, so you'll have to shoot during a high-speed flyby." He walked back over to his seat and jabbed the intercom button.
"Engineering, Lieutenant Commander Singh ... I need more speed, Daya," he said.
"If I give you any more the engines are literally going to tear off of the pylons," Singh said, his voice almost drowned out by the sounds of the machinery in Engineering. "She's giving everything she's got, Jack. Singh out."
Jackson drummed his fingers against his chin, staring off out the main display. It had nothing to do with the abruptness of his chief engineer over the intercom and everything to do with the fact he knew Podere was being ravaged that very second and there was almost nothing he could do about it.
Chapter 15
"She's giving everything she's got, Jack. Singh out."
Daya Singh was standing in the middle of the operations center for the Engineering Department, looking harried. So far the ship's powerplant and engines had responded to the call and the high-output they'd been running at for the last few days didn't seem to be straining any of the individual components. If anything, the techs swore the ship was running better than she had in years now that they were running her harder than any of them could ever recall.
"Chief Cullen," Singh called out. "Run over to reactor one and make sure they're installing that bypass correctly on the water jacket. They've never done this and I don't want someone getting their skin peeled off by high-pressure steam because they don't have the valves configured correctly."
"Yes, sir!" Cullen called, hardly believing his good fortune. He called over a specialist first class and told him to man the instrument-monitoring station. "Just keep an eye on these parameters," he told the young spacer. "If they start to creep up make sure you let the chief engineer know." Cullen clapped the specialist on the shoulder and darted out of the room before he could be asked any questions.
He practically ran down the corridor, stepping aside as pockets of traffic rushed by to one task or another. Pulling his comlink out, he selected a batch message to a list of thirty-eight addresses that simply said, "Check junction 117-3B." The innocuous message that looked to be in engineering jargon was a prearranged signal. That goddamn Earther was pursuing the alien ship again after they’d barely survived the last scrape. Cullen wasn't fooled by that doctored bit of video they were running on a loop that showed the mag-cannons shredding the alien at close range. If anything, he felt insulted they would attempt such a lame deception. How could guns that were so outdated even at the time of their manufacture be able to do so much damage to something that chewed up entire planets?
"Ormond," he said, popping his head into one of the main work centers. "You still good down here?"
"Yes, Chief," Specialist Ormond said, paling slightly as he knew exactly what Cullen was referring to.
"Good," Cullen said, ignoring the other spacers in the room. "Don't fuck this up." He stepped back out into the corridor and took a ladder up a deck and headed forward towards one of the security checkpoints to talk to a Marine corporal who was also instrumental to their plan. He hoped those idiots working on the bypass on number one didn't kill themselves or vent into the room before he could make it back down there.
****
"Captain, I think we may have an opportunity here," Lieutenant Barrett called out from the tactical station. Jackson walked over to stand behind the chair, resting his hand on the back.
"What've you got?"
"If you look here, the target has taken up a stationary position over the area where it's been deploying ground forces," Barrett said. "Given the rotation of Podere, that will put it in our direct line of sight within the next forty-five minutes if we bear a few degrees to port."
"I'm listening," Jackson said, intrigued where this might be going.
"I propose we purge the mag-cannon loaders and reload with solid core rounds," Barrett went on, talking more quickly as his enthusiasm for the plan started to peek through. "If we fire them dead ahead while the Blue Jacket is still at full power—"
"The rounds will be near relativistic speeds when they hit the target," Jackson finished for him. "Can you hit it at this range even if you know where it's going to be?"
"It will be close," Barrett admitted. "The system isn't designed for this type of long-range shot, but if we fire a full spread and space the shots out along this line—” his finger traced an imaginary line along the screen to illustrate his point, "we won't risk hitting the planet and we'll still have enough time to reload the high-explosive rounds and recharge the cap banks."
"Call down to Armament and have them change the load out for the mag-cannons," Jackson said, making the decision quickly as the clock counted down. "You stay here and check, recheck, and then check one more time to make sure your firing solutions are airtight. One stray round at that speed could wipe out an entire city on Podere."
"Yes, sir," Barrett said, turning to his console and beginning to enter he parameters so the computer could crunch the numbers for his plan.
"This is an interesting plan," Celesta said quietly as he retook his seat.
"It's solid," Jackson said more defensively than he needed to. "Kinetic weapons have been a tried and true staple for human warfare. They're just a bitch to aim at these ranges." The mag-cannon targeting actuators were designed to be able to target a fairly large ship at a relatively close range. Hitting something even as big as the alien ship at the distances and speeds they were dealing with would, on the surface, seem impossible. But Jackson was hoping they were due for some good luck, preferably a miracle, sometime in this mission.
"I'm not disparaging the idea," she said. "If it doesn't work we haven't lost anything but a few tons in useless solid core rounds. If it does work this could be quite spectacular."
"Yeah," Jackson said, mulling it in his head. "Twenty rounds ... that's not a lot of chances to hit this bastard at this range even as big as it is. If it sees them coming and just nudges itself to a higher orbit they all miss."
"Like I said, no harm done," she insisted.
"Maybe," Jackson grunted. "It does feel good to take the initiative though."
It was another thirty minutes before the armament crew had swapped the load out and Barrett had absolute confidence in his numbers. Jackson discreetly had Lieutenant Davis check them to make sure there wasn't any obvious error. He appreciated the effort Barrett was making to redeem himself, but his previous performance earned him a “trust, but verify” treatment until he proved otherwise.
"Helm, bear two degrees to port and pitch down three degrees, no change in engine power," Jackson said.
"Aye aye, sir," the helmsman said, "bearing to port and pitching down."
"Tactical, the stage is yours," Jackson said, flipping a switch on his own console. "You are authorized weapons release for upper and lower mag-cann
on turrets at your discretion."
"Aye, sir," Barrett said. "Aligning cannons now and turning over fire control to the computer."
Jackson stood up and watched the barrels of the two upper cannons twitching as the fine correction motors adjusted the weapons a thousandth of a degree at a time. There would be a sweet spot where the Blue Jacket would line up with the moving alien ship and the computer would begin the firing sequence without waiting for him or the tactical officer to initiate.
Most of the bridge crew watched, transfixed on the barrels of the guns that were lit up by the ship's external running lights. The near hypnosis was broken when the first gun lit off with a mighty boom that shook the ship. The rest of the twenty shots followed quickly, the recoil of the guns shaking the ship. The bridge crew shielded their eyes as the trace amounts of trapped gas in the system ignited while escaping the barrels and flashed brightly on the main display.
"All shots away," Lieutenant Barrett reported, all business as he checked his displays. "Reloading with high-explosive rounds. All four mag-cannons still show fully functional."
"Very good, Lieutenant," Jackson said. "Prepare for your next volley as we close on the target. OPS! Monitor the enemy ship and check for impacts. How long?"
"Rounds will reach the enemy in thirty-three minutes," Davis said. Jackson just raised an eyebrow. If the Blue Jacket could achieve those speeds, at least without killing the crew during acceleration, he could have beaten the enemy ship to Podere and made his stand there.
Jackson forced himself to leave the bridge and head to the wardroom to grab a quick bite to eat and refill his mug with water. He'd had so much coffee the last couple of days his hands were shaking and he felt like it was eating a hole through his stomach lining. Although both of those could be attributed to stress. After the initial bout of panic had subsided when they first encountered the alien ship over Oplotom, he was somewhat surprised that he'd been able to hold things together as well as he had. While he would never say it out loud, he had always assumed that, save for a few exceptions, his crew was a collection of misfits and fuck ups. In those same moments of candor with himself he would also have to conclude that there was some truth to the rumor that he'd lucked into a command slot that he possibly didn't deserve.
Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship Page 16
