Battleship Destroyer (100 page)

As the Commander frowned at Jack's statement.
The Ensign shook her head and started looking around the bridge. Suddenly snapping her fingers. "Shut down the lights. Now!  Emergency lights only."  She said to the Engineering board officer.

The Lieutenant shut them off. "Ensign that is not going to do any good. I can't see. I am too tired or
shocked or disgusted with myself for ordering the death of so many good crewmen." Taking a deep breath. "You pick what sounds good to you but I can't do it."

"Oh shut up, get up off your fat ass and sit down at the helm.
" Pulling on him to get him out of the chair. "You have 14 minutes and if your eyes do not adjust in 13 you can always turn it back over to the Commander.  Captain!"

Getting up
she pushed him into the helm and sat him down. He tried to just sit there. Intending to wait a few minute to make the Ensign happy and then go back to the Command Chair and let the Commander have the helm back. Only as he sat there staring off to the side and down at the deck he started seeing things outside the ship.  Without thinking he started running the normal systems check he had done a thousand times in The Game. Habits started taking over without thinking. 

The First officer sat down in the Command Chair and started issuing orders preparing and making sure the ship and her crew were ready.
As he worked he started noticing Jack looking around the bridge as if he was looking through the deck and solid consoles. But he could not be sure in the dim light of the screens surrounding the pilot’s seat. Then when Jack turned off most of his screens leaving only the bare minimum basic information about the ship and space around him he started getting worried as he leaned forward.

The Ensign walked back over and put her hand over the Commanders
shoulder and whispered only for him to hear.  "Jack and I can see things most other humans can't Commander.  Our Genes were altered by a neutron star long ago before birth. He can see the cloud better than the ships instruments. Relax. It was what made it possible for us to know what the Apes were doing in the enemy battleship in time to react. It is why he was able to pilot the fleet in the canyon the first time successfully when you could not. For instance, it looks like day in here to him and me with the bulkheads and deck vague ghosts as long as the lights are out. If you don't believe me I can tell you everything you have in your pockets and your lockers in your cabin. Fact is, he will one day see a lot more but he was abused into retardation when he was growing up and it will just take time." 

Looking at the shocked face of the Commander.  "It is not that different than normal people. We just can see additional wavelengths
both up and down the spectrum. It is normal to have genes turned on that make people a genius and the hospitals are full of people that see things they cannot explain, understand or handle after certain visual genes have accidentally been activated. We are just blessed to have the brains to process the additional information flooding in and raised where the lower and higher radiation spectrum is plentiful and damn useful. Relax and just do your job without making the rest of the bridge nervous and make sure he is left alone to do his without distractions.  He is still rather new at it and it takes him a lot of concentration." She went back to the science sensor board with the First Officer watching her in the gloom for several seconds.

"So why don't you take the Helm if you can see so much better?"  The Commander said in a whisper.

The Ensign smiled at him. "I can see better but I only hear like everyone else along with all the other normal human foibles and imperfections including only being a fare pilot. What was your question sir?"

"Never mind Ensign." The Commander
turned back to taping the screens in front of him, checking the ship while getting it ready to rock as he watched the marines leverage the wrecked assault boat into an empty tank. Shelving what he had been told for the moment but hoping it was true deep down inside because he wanted to live. He let habit and training take over and not the fear.

Jack
started sliding the ship over closer to the side of the canyon as he kept looking up through the overhead dead viewing screens.

The Ensign went back to her sensors. "Target Alpha 30 minutes from impact. Target Echo intercepting Target Alpha in 10 minutes. Bravo has changed
course some and will impact the canyon wall in 20 minutes as we pass in gun range under it. I think we can get away with firing a couple of salvos at it without being spotted by the rest of the fleet. If we don't take it out it could take us out not to mention warning the others if it spots us. Then if Echo stays with Alpha or even manages to repair it, we are screwed as well." Looking over at Jack. It was 2 minutes until they had to start changing course.  "Captain, Jack, did you hear me? Alpha and Echo with a third contact is headed down the same canyon we will be going down with plenty of time to see us before Alpha hits and Echo still has plenty of power with only one shield deck to maneuver back out along with 4 good main guns at point blank range."

Turning to look at her. "Check the Nav Plot Ensign. We ar
e not going near Alpha and Echo and that is what I was talking about to the ship. We will slide under Bravo without being seen if we are lucky.  I think they have other problems to worry about."

The Ensign turned back to the Nav plot
, it showed them going up the canyon making a gradual starboard turn into a hard sharp S turn to port and then back hard to starboard to straighten out to run up under the projected course of Alpha and Echo… No. looking closer she realized that she had just glanced at it and took it for granted that they would stay in the main canyon but just as they entered the sharp S turn a narrow finger shot off to the Starboard side that the plot followed headed away from Alpha and Echo. With all the information flooding into her eyes the electronic plot line was not that easy to see from where she was. Smiling with relief. All they had to do was get past Bravo and they were home free. Besides the last half of the canyon S turn, now that she looked closer at it, looked way to sharp to turn at the speed they were going at.

"Number One, you should have a couple of minutes after we level out on the bottom to prepare the weapons crews just in case Bravo sees us.

"Yes Captain." Tapping the ship's public address system. "Ten minute to acceleration course change. All hands take your positions."

"Oh Number One, is everyone out of the enemy assault shuttles. I can't believe they will stay attached
through the acceleration and I don't want to lose anyone."

"Most are out but the crews want to stay with them to make sure they do stay attac
hed. What they can do to help is beyond me but we don't have time to argue about it. I had the tank hatches closed just in case we do lose one or both of them."

"Just
curious Number One, do you have a head count yet?"

"Not
exact yet but it is well over 4 thousand alien refugees along with several hundred more Red Apes from the other ships. That part has me worried. And a surprise, we have some enemy ships crewmen as well, some kind of lizard they tell me. Not all of them are slaves evidentially."

Jack glanced around at Pan in one of the Jump seats
that had been pulled out. "What is this Pan? Crewmen?"

"The AgampyColeen is or was still new enough to still have some of
its original crewmen aboard. They may be a problem. I shall talk to them when I get a chance and tell you if they are."

"New enough?  Just how old are we talking about and why doesn't your ship still have crewmen?"

"Roughly a thousand years old. My ship, the Campacheea is almost 10,000 years old and the home system was lost to an enemy Empire 5 thousand years ago and never retaken. Without the ships home system to provide crewmen, the God Officers use slaves from conquered systems as crewmen. Taking slaves from specialist planets to fill their needs. The advantage to slaves is that they are mostly self-replacing, which is why the God Officers tolerate children and can grow their own food. Crewmen from mother systems must be replaced when they die with specialist trained hatched crewmen from the mother system and fed from the mother system. The crewmen will start dyeing when their stored food from their home system runs out so I do not understand why they came. They could not have taken that much food. It is also their costume to die with their ships. Very perplexing."

Jack glanced around a
t Pan again skeptical. "The Ah,, AgampyColeen’s crew is only a thousand years old? Do they keep them on ice too and take them out for maintenance one day a month?"

Pan
chuckled. "No Captain Turner. Like the Apes they carry several Tens of thousands in cold storage. We constructed the slave quarters out of their cooler decks when we replaced them.  The God Officers would take them out when replacements were needed as with their food. We slaves grow our food between the shield decks. The Campacheea had many shield decks and we ate well. Some ships with only one or two shield decks barely survive having to trade for food from many shield decked ships. Though some God Officers Captains are good at acquiring shield decks when other ships are destroyed in combat while others are not. I have seen ships attack ships that have lost too many of their main guns to defend themselves in close combat, stripping them of their armored decks. Though a good God Admiral makes sure he moves guns and decks around to maintain a roughly even number amongst his ships to prevent that from happening. "

Pan sat up and looked at Jack with some concern. "That is what the God fleet is doing now as it takes your outlaying systems. They are using the systems riches in mettle to replace weapons
. The problem for the Godfleet is that the conquered systems and their planets only have the heavy metals they imported before the God fleet showed up creating quite a competition amongst fleet commanders for the few new pieces of armaments they are able to replace after striping the systems. New armored decks will have to wait for them to take a fertile Iron star. That is why you humans may be able to win. The Iron stars they have taken from you so far are Virgin. "

Jac
k glanced around at Pan as the plot clock hit zero and Jack advanced the throttles. "What the hell is a Virgin Iron Star?"

Looking at Jack with a frown. "Virgin means the Star is old enough to have turned much of its hydrogen into heavy
metals but has never gone Nova to spread the heavy metals around its sector then collecting enough hydrogen over the eons to restart the star again. The Iron stars we stopped at before entering human space were all Virgin and a great disappointment to the fleet as were the population on the one with intelligent life. They were too week to make good slaves so they were eliminated. "

"What do you mean elimi
nated?" The First Officer asked as the ship reached 300 Gee's

Jack
continued to slowly increase the throttles as he slid in closer to the side wall and deeper into the shadow from the enemy ships as they continued to descend down into the trench.

"Ah a better word in your language would be exterminated I believe." Taking a breath as she watched the Gee meter go up
past 600 Gees. "But don't worry you humans have passed all the tests with flying colors. You make very good slaves even if your revolt quotient is high. It can be dealt with."

"Ok is that why your Gods are invading our stars?"

"I understand you have several fertile iron stars which is why this God Empire wants your stars after losing its Battleship engine production Iron stars in the core. It is desperate for new factories to resume engine production. Producing its engines out here in the never stars, they should not have to worry about raids destroying the factory worlds or losing the system when the front line changes." Pan's eyes grew big as she watched the Gee meter slide over 800 Gee's. "But then this empire fleet, is very old and was decimated when it was trapped by several enemy fleets while trying to take back the last engine production Iron star the Empire had. Though it managed to rescue the factory station before withdrawing.”

“The problem was that without a fertile Iron star system to supply raw materials for the Prime Factory. N
o replacements were possible for the decimated fleet and no longer of any threat to enemy fleets and of no value to the Empire, the God Empire sent us out here to find a new home for the factory safe from the many enemies." Closing her eyes so she did not have to see it reach a thousand Gee's, she continued nervously trying to ignore what she knew was impossible.  "The God Admiral had the fleet travel 10,000 light years from the last Empire star before he stopped the fleet to look for possible fertile stars. We have traveled thousands of light years since. Out here with stars so far apart most nova stars never acquire enough gas again to restart and simply fade away lost for all time dark and cold.  You humans just turned out to be lucky. Your captured ships have shown that you have several rich fertile iron stars in your empire. The God Commander just has to penetrate fare enough to find out which one is fertile without losing the fleet. Then he will produce millions of battleships using human slave labor."

Jack glanced at
Pan and then the corner of his heads up display and the Gee meter hitting 1200 and back at the actual plot line showing that the ship would clear the canyon floor. "Well Number One, how is the crew doing?"