Empty Casket Conspiracy (Terran Patrol Book 1)

by Lewis Dually

“Wow.” Gale replied. “Great minds do think alike. Lloyd came up with the same idea.”

  “Copy that. UES one seven eight out.” I replied. Knowing Gale’s resident egghead had the same idea gave me some reassurance about my plan. Maybe it would work. If it didn’t, I wonder what he would think about my plan B? I switched the channel over to ship address and squeezed the mic button again.

  “All hands, this is the Skipper. Battle stations. Prepare for warp jump in one minute. Activate level two radiation protocols and secure the ship for rough seas and EVERYBODY PUT ON YOUR HELMETS!”

  Then I called Master Chief Logan. “Cob, we are going to jump across the Heliosphere and come out between the boundary and the Bow Shock. Make ready.”

  “Aye aye Sir. All systems are a go!” Cob responded.

  “Copy that.” I replied

  “Hollister, you ready?”

  “Yes Sir. I have the jump coordinate set and relayed to the Crimson Moon. We are jumping in twenty four seconds.”

  I set back in my chair and buckled my restraint belt. Just as I got it latched the warp bubble opened in front of us and Hollister shot us forward into the void.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Ninety four seconds Sir. It’s a short jump.”

  The short ninety four seconds seemed like an eternity as I watched the swirling mass of stars pass by and noticed an unusual green hew that seemed to concentrate around us. Sort of like the Arora Borealis effects the night sky, the Heliosphere was washing the surrounding void with the green glow of ionized gas. Finally the green glow dissipated as the end of our warp bubble loomed large in the forward viewer. We shot through the bubble’s exit and found ourselves staring straight down the nose of a Krueg battle carrier.

  “OH SHIT!” Blain blurted out.

  I grabbed the mic and shouted into it.

  “Enemy battle carrier at twelve o’clock. Fire, Fire, Fire.”

  Hollister pitched the ship over on her port side and dove us down under the massive Krueg ship. Our sudden appearance had obviously taken them by surprise as well. None of her guns were pointed in our direction and Hollister’s evasion maneuver took us so close that I could see the hull plate fasteners in her belly. Our railguns opened up and we started throwing our tungsten steel rounds into her hull plating at a rate of one round every second. Hollister turned the ship near the carrier’s midsection and brought us up and over her starboard side. Rotating the Dawn Rising so our port side was facing the carrier, we began to fly a tight high speed circle around her midsection while our ports guns pommeled her. Then our sea whiz guns opened up with a thousand round per minute hail of spent plutonium projectiles. On our second pass around the massive beast I caught site of the Crimson Moon coming at us. Gale was circling the carrier in the opposite direction while her starboard guns blasted away at the same ring of destruction we were pounding. The two high speed attackers circling the carrier in opposite direction while spraying thousands of white tracer’s into the beast must have been a spectacular sight. The Krueg’s big gun turrets were trying to maneuver into a firing position but we had stumbled onto a section of the ship where their big guns could not aim. Moreover, her EMP and plasma cannons could not point back in our direction either. Only one large gun turret on either side of the ship could fire towards our flight path but they were too slow to track our close range high speed circles.

  “This could work!” I exclaimed.

  “Sir.” Blain shouted. “At this rate of fire our port guns will be empty in two minutes.”

  “Copy that. Hollister. In one minute rotate to our starboard side. I don’t want the port guns to run totally out.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “IN COMING!” Blain shouted.

  Just as she said it we heard the unmistakable sound of high velocity impacts on the hull. The Krueg carrier had turned their own sea whiz guns on us and it sounded like we were flying through a hail storm. Thousands of bullets pommeled the ship like a swarm of angry bees attacking a bear after the honey comb. The on slot continued for a full minute until a hull breach alarm sounded.

  “HULL BREACH, PORT SIDE IN THE SHUTTLE BAY!” Walter shouted over the deafening ring of hull impacts from the sea whiz barrage.

  “HOLLISTER! ROTATE STARBOARD!” I shouted.

  Hollister rolled us over and the starboard guns opened up as the starboard side of the ship took its turn as both shooter and target. As we passed over the top of the Krueg carrier I saw the Crimson Moon coming at us and saw that she too had switched sides. “Thata girl.” I said out loud to no one in particular.

  “GALE.” I shouted into the mic. “KEEP IT GOING. MAYBE WE CAN CUT HER IN HALF.”

  Just as I released the mic button I was thrown forward so hard that it felt like my seat restraint dang near cut me in two. The Dawn Rising jolted sideways and Hollister lost control as two more hard impacts struck our belly.

  “ANOTHER SHIP!” Blain shouted. “It’s that other destroyer. The Toatton or whatever it was called.”

  “Sun of a!” I blurted out. “So much for his word.”

  Then Chaffey shouted. “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

  I looked forward to the main view monitor just in time to see us careening out of control and heading straight for the battle carrier’s bottom hull. Hollister tried to regain control and managed to angle our trajectory just enough so that we bounced off the carriers bottom. We bounced hard and I suddenly found myself flying across the bridge while still strapped in my captain’s chair. I crashed against the ceiling and came back down to the floor landing face down with the chair on top of me. Then the gravity plates shut down and the weight of the chair disappeared as I began to float upward again. The impact with the floor had broken my jaw and I was barely able to mumble the command but I got it out.

  “Blain. Activate the care package.”

  “Communications are down Sir. I can’t send the signal.”

  Another round hit us and the ship began to spin like a Frisbee. I was floating toward the ceiling still strapped in the captain’s chair and watching the bridge spin around me like some sort of carnival ride. Then I hit the spinning ceiling and was flung around the bridge like a marble in a roulette wheel before finally crashing to a stop against the forward view screen. I heard the glass break and sparks enveloped me, singeing my hair and blinding me with its brilliant white light. I unbuckled my restraint belt and pushed away from the shower of fire erupting from the view monitor. Then I heard it. The heart stopping sound of the ship wide depressurization Siren! A high pitched whistle began to fill the bridge as our precious air was sucked out into the vacuum of space. I mentally cursed myself for not having my helmet on like I had commanded everybody else to do. Kicking and clawing against the force of the spinning ship I managed to make it back to my chair and retrieved my helmet from its storage rack. As I slipped the helmet over my head I could feel the air being sucked out of my lungs and noticed the deafening silence filling my ears has the pressure built up behind my ear drums. I locked the helmet in place, flipped open the wrist mounted suit control pad and hit the activate button. The pressure in my lungs and ears subsided and I began to hear frantic radio traffic coming through the suit’s coms channel.

  “Dawn Rising. Do you Copy? Commander Paul. Do you copy?”

  “Ten four. I copy.” I mumbled through the searing pain coming from my jaw. “Tell Sprite to activate the care package.”

  “Done did. It was a spectacular sight. The destroyer is destroyed!” What’s your condition?” Gale asked.

  “Don’t know. I’ll get back to you.”

  Switching to personnel coms, I called out. “Status report! All departments check in.”

  Blain Responded first. “Long range and subspace communications and sensors are off line.”

  Then Hollister. “Propulsion and navigation is off line. I have manual thruster control and am trying to stop our spin.”

  Then Walters sounded out. “Sir. The ship is totally depressurized. Hull breaches in a
ll decks. I think they punched a hole clean through our central core. I have no readings at all on drive engines.”

  “Cob. You copy?” I squeaked out.

  “Aye aye Skipper. We have a four foot diameter hole right through the central core. You can see stars top to bottom and our port side drive rail is shattered. We are dead Sir.”

  “But we still have power?” I asked.

  “Yes Sir. The reactor is still on line.”

  “What about the warp engines?”

  The Cob didn’t respond immediately so I asked again. “COB, DO WE HAVE WARP ENGINES?”

  Yes Sir, but what good are they without drive engines?”

  “Do we have a functioning emergency rocket booster?”

  “Yes Sir but it only has….Oh! Yes Sir! You have two minutes of emergency descent rocket burn at your disposal Sir!”

  “Good. Bring me a Mercury suit. Chaffey, order 13!”

  I switched my coms back over to ship to ship and called out.

  “Gale! I just gave order 13. Pick up my crew and get out of here!”

  Switching back to personnel coms before she could reply, I called Hollister. He almost had our spin arrested and didn’t look like he intended to evac with the others.

  “Hollister. Can you open a warp jump without navigations functioning?”

  He turned his head inside his helmet and eyeballed me with one visible eye. “Yes Sir, but I can’t aim it.”

  “What if your target was within visual range?”

  “Well, yes, if I can see it I think I can.”

  “Good! Plot me a warp jump into the center of that big bastard. Are any of these view screens functioning?”

  “This one is.” Blain replied and pointed at the screen next to her coms station.

  I kicked off the wall and floated over to the coms station. The view screen was on and I could see the Krueg battle carrier moving away from us while the Crimson Moon hovered just forward and above.

  “She’s using maneuvering thrusters only. We must have done more damage to her than I thought.” I said. “We better make this quick before she gets out of visual.”

  “I need to know her speed Sir.” Hollister shouted.

  “I got it.” I said and switched over to Gale. “Hollister needs to know the speed of the carrier. Can you give him that on personnel channel three?”

  “Yes Sir. Are you sure about this? Ramming them with the Dawn Rising is not going to have the same effect as the Constellation Sir. Not enough mass.”

  “I ain’t ramming her.”

  “Sir? I don’t….”

  Gale was cut off and I heard Lloyd come over the coms.

  “I got this. The carrier is picking up speed so I’ll do the trig for you to compensate your burn time and thrust mass drag coefficient to intercept a moving target with positive momentum.”

  “Whatever that means.” I replied. “Give it to Hollister. He is plotting the jump.”

  “Yes Sir. I assume you want to emerge dead center?”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes sense Sir. I’ll take care of it.” Lloyd replied.

  “Here’s your suit Sir.” I heard Cob say through my coms. I turned and saw Cob pushing the bulky gold colored metal monstrosity through the bridge door. Designed for the Mercury exploration mission, the suit could withstand an external temperature of sixty two hundred degrees Fahrenheit and could repel a fifty caliber round. Every ship in the fleet had one on board in case all hell broke loose. This was as close as it gets.

  “Question Skipper? How are you going to get out of that and into this?” Cob asked as he pointed at my pressure suit.

  “Simple. Remove my life pack from my back. Then I’ll slip suit and all into the Mercury. It’s big enough. The only thing that won’t fit is my helmet. So when I get in I’ll exhale as much air as I can, close my eyes and you pop my release valve, snatch off my helmet and plop the Mercury helmet on. Preferably very fast. And don’t forget to pressurize me afterward. Also preferably very fast.”

  “That’s going to be one nasty case of the bends Skipper.”

  “The bends won’t hit me for ten minutes or so. Plenty of time for what I have planned. I’m more worried about my vision.”

  Walters floated into view and I could see tears streaming from her eyes and floating between her face and helmet visor.

  “Sir. The jump computer and rocket booster are set on a timer. Why do you have to go? You can set an auto destruct and come with us.”

  Cob reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. “That won’t work sweetheart. The auto destruct system was in the central core. It ain’t there anymore.”

  “But then how are you going to destroy the carrier?”

  “That’s easy. We have a full complement of MT400 torpedoes. I’m going to blow her bottom out. Now get going. Make sure all hands are in the shuttle and ready to evac. As soon as Cob and Hollister are with you, GO! Gale is waiting.”

  Cob turned back to me and said. “All due respect Skipper but I’d like to stick around.”

  “Negative. We got a big bad enemy out there and I doubt if this is our last encounter. The Navy is too shorthanded to lose a salty old sea dog such as yourself. Now quit with the good byes and let’s get this done.”

  Getting into the Mercury suit was fairly easy. Cob removed the life pack from my pressure suit and with the aid of zero gravity I just floated up and back down into the Mercury. Then came the hard part. I looked at Cob. He nodded ready so I forced as much air out of my lungs as I possibly could. When It seemed I was about to push out a lung I nodded at Cob and closed my eyes. The pressure released and I felt as if my whole body was on fire. My ears popped, my stomach swelled up, my eyes burned and then everything went silent. I felt my helmet come off and the sudden cold was a surprise. Cold like I had never felt before. A sudden image of Granger Shelton flashed in my head as I remembered seeing him frozen to the deck plate and covered in frost.

  “Skipper! Skipper. Can you hear me?”

  “What? Yes. Yes I hear you. What happened?”

  “You passed out Sir.”

  “Crap. How much time do we have?”

  “Two minutes, fifty four seconds.”

  “Crap. Go, go. I’m good.”

  Good was a lie but I could see, barely. I pushed Cob away and moved to the jump console.

  “Get going Cob.”

  “Aye aye Skipper. It’s been an honor Sir.”

  I looked at the single small functioning view screen and squinted to see the Krueg battle carrier through the heavy frost building up inside my helmet. I reached down for the suit control pad on my wrist but it wasn’t there. Then I remembered the Mercury suits had voice controls.

  “Suit control, auto heat on.” I ordered.

  The computerized voice responded with “Auto heat on. Interior temperature six point three degrees and rising.”

  Then I tried to sit down in the navigator’s chair but the Mercury suit was too big so I just stood there and let the mag boots hold me to the floor. Suddenly I realized I was in the wrong place.

  “Where is my mind?” I said out loud. “I got to get to fire control.” Moving over to the fire control station was a chore. My legs were numb from the cold and my head was spinning from the bubbles of nitrogen forming in my blood stream. Any time now and I would start to feel the effects of the bends coming on. The countdown clock was at one minute eighteen seconds. Add another thirty second in the warp wave and maybe one minute inside the Krueg carrier to fire my eight torpedoes and the bends could have me. I wouldn’t be around long enough to worry about them anyway.

  Chaffey’s voice broke through the silence. “Shuttle two calling Dawn Rising. We are clear the shuttle bay. All hands accounted for except for you Sir.”

  “Copy that Chaffey. Do we have any casualties?”

  “Yes Sir. Three Sir. Ensign Larson, Ensign Stow and Bozeman’s Mate Moretti Sir.”

  “Copy that. I hate to put this on you Chaffey but you’ll have to write
their families.”

  “Yes Sir. I will take care of them. And yours also Sir.”

  The prospect of someone writing my family had never crossed my mind. Of course they would get a letter from someone but from who. Who would be in charge of writing my letter of condolence? How would my involvement in all of this be presented? The prospect of being made the scape goat in a cover up set my blood on fire. I’ll be danged if I’m going to make it easy for them.

  “Gale. I need to make a final ships log entry. Can you record it for me?”

  “Yes Sir. Go ahead now Sir. We are recording.”

  “Ships log, final entry, twenty second, June, twenty sixty seven, Commander Allen Paul commanding UES 178, Dawn Rising. We are dead in space after engaging the second Krueg battle carrier with the help of UES 185 Crimson Moon. The ship is totally depressurized, one drive rail is busted, we have a hole through and through in our central core and long range communications are off line. The reactor is still functioning and warp engines are still online. I have issued order 13 and the ship’s personnel have evacuated to the waiting Crimson Moon. I have stayed on board to initiate a warp jump into the central corridor of the Krueg battle carrier. I will use our one emergency descent rocket to propel the ship through the warp bubble. Once inside the enemy carrier I will fire a full complement of MT400 torpedoes which should effectively destroy the enemy ship from the inside out. Because of the attempt by my superiors to commit genocide against an alien race, I am now forced to kill thousands of that races soldier’s to protect our species from our own action. I hope my sacrifice is not in vain. Commander Allen Paul, UES Dawn Rising signing off.

  “Did you get that?”

  “Yes Sir. We got it and I will make sure it gets heard Sir. Good luck Skipper. God Bless.” Gale replied.

  “Thanks.” I said. “Now get out of here. You will need a safe distance of at least two thousand miles.”

  The clock was counting and I looked down to make sure I knew where my controls were. Everything was set and I had eighteen seconds to go. I watched the clock and held my breath as it counted down to zero and the warp engines spooled up. Directly in front of me the familiar black void appeared and I braced for the sudden jolt of acceleration that would accompany the solid rocket boosters’ ignition. Right on cue the jolt hit as the propellant in the thirty year old emergency rocket lit. G-force from the massive acceleration pushed me back against the chair I had braced myself against. Without the aid of the inertia dampeners I was in for a bumpy ride. I watched the tiny view screen as the ship entered the warp bubble and the stars began to swirl around me. In a split second the exit to the warp bubble opened at the far end and I could see bright light coming from the other side. Then as I reached the light the ship was pommeled by a cloud of debris being sucked out of the Krueg carrier’s interior chamber. Mostly vegetation in its content, the gaping chasm at the center of the battle carrier gave up its secrets and I realized its purpose. Hydroponics, a necessity for any long range space voyage, the Krueg had chosen to turn the center of the ship into a giant garden. Plant life, dirt, water, planters and plumbing components showered the ship as I entered the massive central corridor of the battle carrier’s belly. Mixed in with the flying debris I distinctly saw three bodies fly past the view monitor as they were sucked into the subspace void opened by our warp engines. I hit the button for warp engine shut down and the bubble closed behind me sealing the ship’s interior from the vacuum of space. The emergency rocket booster was still burning and it propelled the Dawn Rising forward crashing into the ceiling before bouncing back down and rocketing to the end of the corridor where it slammed firmly against the last bulkhead of the interior chasm and threw me hard against the control console. The view monitor was still functioning and I could see a dense fog of smoke building up inside the chamber as my solid rocket booster continued to burn. The expanding gases from the rocket’s burn would soon pressurize the massive chamber and that was what I was counting on. Firing torpedoes inside the depressurized chamber would create extensive internal damage, but firing them in a pressurized environment would be devastating. The shockwaves from the blast would tear the ship apart. The higher the internal pressure, the more destruction would be created and for this reason I waited for the rocket to burn out. As I waited, I looked around the bridge to take stock of the ship’s condition. A large crack had opened up on the port side bulk head and through it I could see the smoke billowing in from the rocket booster’s burning propellant. I also knew the interior pressure was building up because I could hear sounds emanating from outside my ship. The deafening roar of the rocket was getting louder along with some sort of alarm sounding from the battle carrier. Suddenly the rocket roar subsided and I knew the candle was out.