Battleship Destroyer (108 page)

Jack suddenly realized there was no reason why he should have to just sit with nothing to do while everyone else had all the fun. Getting up he tapped the pilot on the shoulder.
"Number One, I will take the helm from here." Taking the pilots chair that was more of a cockpit than simply chair. He quickly belted in and counted down, "3, 2, 1, Cut."  Jack pulled the throttles back cutting power to the engines and then slammed the stick over to whip the ship around tail to the cloud. "Engineering, start boring on the engines."   Then slammed the throttles forward to their programmed stops as the cloud rapidly approached.

"Engine coned. Stern shields at full power. Point defense activated. Entering cloud in 3,
2, 1, mark."  Number one said and then they were punching a hole through the cloud as Jack kept the ship balanced on its stern as it made a straight line hole through the mountain of cloud.

Jack started breathing again after they had successfully bored a hole in the cloud for a few second
s without the ship being torn apart as soon as they hit. Even though they had done it once before he still had not really believed it until just then when they had done it a second time. He suddenly wished he had figured out some way to make turns while they were inside but he had not had time to give it much thought and started giving it some.

Then remembered that heat was a big problem before and brought up a small side screen
checking that everything on the ship that created heat had been shut down that could be shut down then he turned his attention to the navigation problem simply for something to do to get his mind off doing the impossible and an idea started to form in his mind as his subconscious kept trying to think of the battle and the possibility of being killed weather he wanted to or not.

He just could not grasp the idea
he knew was there as it bopped around in his mind even though he knew it was a good idea from the glances he got of it in his mind between all his other concerns along with thoughts of dying if the enemy could somehow track them going through the cloud and was waiting for them at the other end ready to fire at them.

The ship bucked as the vapor remnants of a larger rock destroyed by the engine exhaust
but too big to be completely deflected had hit the ship. As he straightened back up in his chair and tightened down the straps as tight as they would go he realized that he had seen the vapor cloud in plenty of time to dodge it but had not even tried as his thoughts were elsewhere.

He started concentrating again dodging a couple of
vapor wisps and then a peace of rock that was simply too big for the engines to completely vaporize let alone allow the shields to sweep it to the side. He was able to miss the molten fragment by only a couple hundred feet. "Damn, now that could have ripped a cooling/landing fin off or even killed an engine if it had hit." The idea of losing an engine while boring the hole suddenly brought the idea for steering the ship into clear focus. By reprograming the engines to form the cone with 1 of them he could use the 2
nd
to steer the ship around corners. Smiling to himself at his genius, the ship suddenly shook jerking Jack hard to the side in his straps as the ship hit the vapor cloud of the remnants of a house sized rock zipping past skimming the side of the ship turning that side of the hull white hot. Ships sensors saying it had passed between two of the fins missing the hull by only feet though he knew better.

"Damn! What the hell am I
doing? I'm supposed to be piloting the damn ship and not worrying about a hundred other things." Jack thought to himself getting disgusted. "That fucking rock could have destroyed the ship and I didn't even see it until after."

Jack started concentrating on piloting the tunnel tube forcing himself to push other matters out of his mind
as he dodged the remnants of another monster rock. Thoughts of the needs of the ship and crew kept trying to interfere making him feel guilty for ignoring them as he piloted but he had no choice. He dared not think of anything else at the moment.

"Captain, we are tracking the enemy Spider squadron approaching the cloud entry point."

Jack suddenly had a hundred questions concerning the Spider squadron and their ships but he dared not take his attention away from the tunnel being bored through the cloud. He had been lucky too many times already as he shoved the ship over to one side of the tube to avoid yet another damn half vaporized rock. A thought of the 5 inch (now 3inch) guns popped into his head for an instant as he dodged the ship around yet another rock. He could not believe how thick the damn rocks seemed to be in the damn cloud.

"Captain, the spider ships
seem to be concentrating their scans on the entry point." First Officer said. "I am concentrating all our fire on the largest ship as target alpha when we break out and are ready to fire. We should destroy it in only a few seconds."

Jack thought about that for a fraction of a second as another large vapor cloud popped into existence where a rock used to be and he dodged around it. He had thought that he had made it perfectly clear that all he wanted to do was slow them all down so the transports could escape. They did not need to kill them though they could if they had enough time. No he had
meant to target all three ships. Two with half the 16(8) inch guns on each and the 3rd with the big 36(27) inch Godguns. At the range they were going to be at most of the shots were bound to hit easily knocking out engines and guns in the opening salvoes. Giving them plenty of time, literally minutes, to fire at the Spider ships before they could return fire effectively. Once slowed down and damaged they would have plenty of time to simple go around and finish them off at their leisure from long range. But Jack had to jerk the ship to miss another rock with more rapidly following. Not giving him time to think let alone say anything without endangering the ship.

Every time he started to open his mouth another rock or gas cloud appeared forcing him back to work. Never quite getting anything said beyond gibberish.

The Red Pepper finally popped out of the cloud just as it was coming to a stop. "Cut engines. Weapons, target Alpha, fire when you have a lock. Engineering, all generators to the weapons." The First Officer said as Jack concentrated on lining up the stern of the Red Pepper on the approaching enemy squadron allowing all guns to track.

"Number One…" Jack
took a breath to change the orders.

"Fire all guns!" The First Officer said.

The 16 (8) inch guns started firing, sending a steady barrage of 72 shots a second from their 6 twin gunned turrets. The God guns suddenly flashed, their beams washing out the screens and sensors for half a second. When the sensor screen came back to life they showed the stern of target Alpha start to fall apart from all the hits it was taking and then the other 2 spiders main guns fired. 4 streaks from each ship passed the screens seeming close enough to touch forcing half the bridge crew including Jack to duck. The fact that trying to dodge the beams was impossible did not even register until afterwards.

Jack looked around at the damage control screen fearing the worse even though he had not felt anything.
Without thinking Jack jerked the ship around and hit the throttles sending it back up the tunnel. "Number One. Engineering, all power to the engines and shields." Jack turned to look at the damage control board. When the board stayed green he turned back around to the targeting screen. Target Alpha was definitely breaking up.

A collision alarm went off and Jack jerked back to the tunnel and
turned the ship a few degrees to bring the ship back to the center of the shaft as they quickly accelerated up the tunnel they had made only seconds before. Jack suddenly trying to remember if the forward point defense guns were still independently powered from the rest of the ship or had they been spliced into the systems like they had talked about the week before. "Weapons, are…"

The forward 5 inch guns suddenly fired on a
large piece of rock that was on a collision course turning it into vapor that harmlessly passed a thousand feet away from the ship.

As Jack glanced at the vapor cloud zipping back past the
ship and took a breath of relief.

T
he Weapons officer turned around to look at Jack. "Yes Captain?"

Taken back by the
officer’s sudden question. "Ah, good shooting all the way around."

"Thank you Captain I will pass that along to the crews."

Relaxing pride started to wash over Jack. "Godstar that was easy." And just as suddenly disappear. "Damn, we had almost a minute before the Spiders could have fired at us again. We did not need to run damn it." Jack said to himself. "We had plenty of time to take out at least one of the other Spiders. Damn." Shaking his head the bow screens flashed making Jack flinch thinking it was another rock about to hit the ship. Raising his hand half way to shield his eyes before the screens compensated and dimmed. A lightning bolt danced from the side of the tunnel to the tower sticking out from the bow a couple hundred feet ahead of the screens pickup with a gravity sensor pod at the top. The tower being an appendage was not counted as part of the hull and not included in the official length of the ship. It placed the bow gravity pod sensors away from the ship's hull making them more effective. The tower was also acting as a lightning rod as Jack suddenly realized that lightning bolts where also arcing to the tips of the landing cooling fines around sides of the ship. The little screens around the sides of the bridge showing the bolts but were not big enough to flood the bridge with light like the main screen had.

Frowning. "Sensors how long is this tunnel going to stay open. Do we have enough time to get out the fare end?"

"The tunnel wall is ionized with a latticework of charges all the way around forcing the wall to stay intact and will take several weeks if not longer to close with only the larger pieces of debris floating into tube so it should stay less dense than the surrounding cloud for months. What we have to worry about is the debris floating randomly through the cloud which is what we are starting to seeing enter now." A lightning bolt seemed to arc from the tunnels rim out into the cloud to hit what looked like a large house sized rock as the ship passed. "We are scanning the tunnel now for such debris sir."

"Engineering. Return power to the
main weapons please. Weapons get the 8s charged up as well as the big boys. If a house sized chunk drifts into the tunnel we may need them." Jack pulled back on the throttles. "No sense in hurrying around now. Weapons, feel free to take out anything getting near us."

8 beams streaked into the cloud a hundred miles to the side of the ship, centered on the mouth of the tunnel they had shot at the Spider Battle
cruisers from. "Well at least we know they can't track us in here but that brings up how the hell were they able to shoot at us so fast when we shot at them?"

"Captain, permission to target practice on targets of
opportunity?"

"Well, there
seems to be plenty of them. Go ahead Lieutenant."

Jack
started to tap a side screen bringing up the files on the battle and stopped. Looking out ahead of the ship and then only glancing briefly around at the First Officer. "Ah Number One, maybe you should take over piloting." As soon as the First Officer stood beside him Jack climbed out to let him sit. Then took the Command chair and promptly brought up the records of the battle. It showed the enemy ship with their guns already pointed directly at them. "How the hell?" Bringing up the sensor logs. "Ok they had their sensors sweeping the entire cloud on this side of them." Magnifying the Spider ships he noticed that their guns were not exactly aimed at them but just back alongside their ships in the direction they were decelerating in. "Ok that makes sense. Their back side is their week side so they would protect that as they slowed. I should have known that and come in from a different direction. Damn."

Shaking his head he watched the tunnel ahead as the lightning bolts
seemed to grow fewer and less massive as the bow guns continued to target practice on anything that showed itself inside the tunnel. "Weapons, see what you can do with the big chunks outside the tunnel." A quad 3(2) inch turret sent a stream of hundreds of beams at a small chunk in the wall, walking the beams into it. A 5(3) inch turret fired at a rock a hundred miles from the edge of the tunnel. The rock started breaking up after half a second and then the rest of the turrets on that side of the ship started taking out the chunks drifting away.

"Ok Weapon
s, just how far can you see into the cloud?"

"Thousands of miles easily Captain.
I was just plotting a dozen to try our guns on. We figure targeting and the weapons have about half their original range while in the cloud. We are even still tracking the Spider squadron through it. Permission to fire at them sir?"

Jack thought about it for a few seconds when 8 beams streaked past the ship. The closest about 10 miles away.
"Ok, they must be targeting our 5 inch gun beams. They are making quite a show. Number One, engines stop, turn the stern into the targets. Weapons if you can get a good lock on one of them fire away. Let's see what happens. Tactical count down to the next Spider gun volley."

"Captain, lock on Target Br
avo. Firing in 3, 2. ShooT."

Seventy Two
shots a second started streaming out through the cloud. The high temperature 16(8) inch beams punching holes through the cloud without a lot of blooming. Jack was surprised when the cloud did not seem to affect the beams more than it was.