Battleship Destroyer (122 page)

All none essential equipment had long been shut down if for no other reason than most of it would simply burn out as the heat continued to build up in the ship. The bridge was not bad but a look at the damage control schematic across the back of the bridge showed the temperature in most
of the outer compartments had risen to 300 degrees. Much hotter and the blankets and personnel clothing would start to burn spontaneously. Luckily all paper aboard ships had been replaced ages ago by high temp composites and without oxygen the burnable’s would merle char.

Turning to Pan. "Pan how are your people doing?"

"You warned us that suits were required but we did not know it would be for temperature control. We were caught by surprise and several races are suffering badly. We have gotten most into thermal cooled environment boxes but some were too late."

"This has been a big surprise to us as well Pan. My condolences for your dead." Jack studied his screen for a few second. "I don't think it will last much longer but that all depends on the shell."

"I am making a minor adjustment to the firing plan with your permission Jack. I think it will help keep the fireball contained better for a wider hole if it does work."

Jack studied his screen for a few seconds. "Ya sure Ensign. Looks good." Tapping the initiate icon. "It looks like we are up to 200 feet width already but that is less than half way to what we need and
if it breaks or the facing outside or inside the bubble collapses before we have the width we need we are screwed when the heat is no longer contained.  Pan, any help from you would be appreciated."

"Yes Captain Turner.
Thank you for letting us follow along with your calculations but we do not completely understand your thinking. We are still trying to comprehend how you are managing to keep the fireball against the outside ring to slowly melt the carbon. We understand how you are creating the fireball with the God gun pulses crossing beams and we understand how you are keeping that fireball from hitting the face towered us using the rapid firing 16(8)s reflecting around the faces. But we do not understand how you are able to channel the plasma melt you are creating around the outside edges of the ring in the shell through the fireball and up into the core. The interference between Godguns and your 16(8)s and the shell should destabilize the whole thing and pump the plasma and heat out into both faces of the shell destroying the thin shell towered us without making the hole in the shell any wider. Yet we understand that it is that shell face inside and out that is keeping the heat in to melt the crystal outer edges of the hole in the shell. We just can’t figure out how."

Pan bowed her head. "We failed and cannot help you Captain Turner. I humbly apologize Sir and offer you my life in token for that failure."

"Godstar Pan. Not that shit again. Go sit down and shut up unless you have something constructive to say." The screens showing the bubble and targets outside the ship started fuzzing up as the heat affected the pickups.

"Captain, Engineering. Compartment temperatures have reached 350 degrees in some of the outer compartments. We have cleaned as much of the
burnable material out as we could but we are no longer able to send crewmen into them. Some of the compartments have critical equipment that will not last much longer at these temperatures either."

"Well
then it is time to start dumping the air out of them Chief. Vacuum will help keep convection from spreading the heat from the hull." Studying his screen Jack continued to frown. "Weapons, I want you to target the rest of the torpedoes, Heat mode warhead, in a 450 foot diameter circle from the central hole. Try to keep them spaced equally around the circumference and be quick about it. We are running out of time." The plasma stream rushing toward the core fireball at the center of the Bubble burped as torpedoes started launching from the bow of the ship again.

"Sorry Captain but we do not have Vacuum outside the ship. The bubble's atmosph
ere is up to a 50 pounds from the core outgassing.  The hull will start collapsing at 150 pounds sir. We were never designed for operations this deep in an atmosphere sir. The inner compartments around the core are up to 200 degrees and the inside of the core is 150 degrees. Without the suits everyone would be dead already."

"Well then Chief we had better get the hell out of here before it is too late.
Start upping the pressure in the outer hull compartments. Hopefully that will buy us time." Jack shook his head as he went back to concentrating on controlling the shots into the hole in the shell.

The torpedoes rushed at the shell impacting roughly at the same time in a
rough circle around the hole leaving a large gap between impacts at 1100 where the warhead failed to explode.

"Warheads punched a hundred foot
deep, 6 inch wide tapered hole in the shell and raised the temperature to 4,000 degrees at each location with a small crater around the hole." The Ensign was pleased with herself for getting the information for Jack without being asked.

"Very well. Weapons, Target all our other weapons equally on the torpedo impact holes of the circle. Try to be as accurate as you can.
Only the shots down the holes will do us any good." The plasma stream shooting out toward the core burped.

"Jack, the shock wave across the faces from the 16(8
)s is starting to break down. Too much area to cover."  The Ensign Was worried. "I need to spread the grid out. Give me control of the 16(8)s babe. Now."

Jack frowned as he worked. The stream shooting toward the core burped again.

"Damn it Jack, you can't control both of them by yourself anymore. It is just too big."

Jac
k glanced around. "Fine, take the guns smaller than the 16(8)s for the outer holes. 3, 2, 1, it’s yours. Don't frack up."

The core stream smoothed back out
after Jack was able to concentrate for a few seconds.

"Weapons, the hole at 072
0 is cooler than the others. Re-task a Five into it. Ensign damn it, keep an eye on the temps of them all and keep them even." The holes around the perimeter continued to geyser plasma into the void as less and less of the beam energy was reflected out and more and more stayed in heating the shell.

"The ring holes are almost 200 feet deep now and
fingers of heat are starting to intercept the central fireball cavern." The Ensign's smile turned sour as she thought of something.  "I think we need to back off the power going down the holes before they burn through the outer shell Jack"

"No, I want them to burn
through. Though you can start widening the holes. Trenching them toward each other."

"Ya sure. How am I supposed to do that?"

Jack gave her a dirty exasperated look as his fingers continued to fly over his air controls.

The Ensign looked away down to her own board. "Oh
ya. Got it babe. Ah Captain. On it already.  You have your own problems." The holes of the outer ring circle were a good 3 feet across by then and all she had to do was target the shots to the sides she wanted to dig the trench.

"Weapons, lieutenant, changing the targeting
on the 30mms and 3(2)s." slowly the holes started widening into trenches toward the other holes with the massive amounts of heat coming from the central core softening up the basic matrix around them.

"Captain!" T
he Comm Officer exclaimed. "Got the hulk on the line Captain. Auto call. Do you wish to answer?"

"Answer a
n auto call? Na, we will wait for them to get serious and personally call." Jack said sarcastically.  "Yes Ensign, they probably think we are dead or in such bad shape themselves they don't have the personnel to sit around trying to call the dead. Answer them and find out how much damage they have. Ensign, where have we broken through? My screens in the cavern seam to still be stable."

"Ah… half my holes are
through with more punching through by the second." The Ensign interjected. "I want to reduce the power to the 5(3)s and program solid constant beams instead of pulses. Do a better and faster job of cutting the trenches. Right now most of their energy is going straight through the holes out the other side. As it is, we are looking at a good day to cut the ring at this rate Jack."

Jack turned and looked at the Ensign and smiled. "Very well Ensign get with weapons and do that."

"Captain, Marine Commander Murphy on the hulk is on the line sir."

"Put him on the main screen Ensign."

"Captain Turner, I cannot believe you are alive. We were sure the plasma wave had sent you and your ship to the Gods. It damn near did us.  You are not going to believe what it did to the hulk and us. Is that you shooting through the crust a few miles away from us?"

"Well
, I hope so, we are getting ready to cut a hole through a carbon bubble now if our luck holds. I was expecting to have to look for you.  I am glad we don’t. Stick around a few minutes and see what happens."

"No Captain, we are not going
anywhere. See you when you break out."

The central fireball suddenly broke
through to one of the outer ring of holes along the heat line finger and started spewing massive amounts of plasma out the hole. Seconds later other holes started suddenly spewing large streams.

"It is about time." Jack said as his fingers started dancing across the keys again and the
central column streaming toward the core suddenly stopped and the streams from the circle of holes increased substantially. The mass of plasma from the center quickly eating the small holes into a giant circle.

The Bridge watched the circle quickly grow as hole after hole merged with the ones around it. The inner
shell finally parted flying down into the huge chamber Jack had been building and then stopped.

The laser beams from the guns started bouncing all over back into the bubble now that the inner shell plate had sandwiched down onto the outer shell.

Staring at the huge flaming pit as beams started bouncing back and hitting the ship. “Cease fire!” Jack hit the red button on the arm of his chair stopping the laser gunfire. A second later the hole became peaceful showing a solid plate in the center of a deep pit. A ring of fire stretched around the outside except where the one missing torpedo hole had left a finger whose end was stretching down like a long plastic ramp to the plate sitting at the bottom of the hole.

“All comms with our Spider ship has stopped Captain. The holes must have sealed back up as the inner plate fell against the outer shell.”

Jack looked on in despair as he heard someone start to cry and several others cursed in his suit’s headphones.

The
n suddenly the bottom of the pit disappeared as the atmosphere pressure pushing both plates tumbled away into the cloud beyond the bubble leaving a roughly  450 foot hole in the bubble with a sharp jagged spike protruding out into the open hole where the torpedo had failed to explode. The end of the long sharp finger leaving a growing fiber attached to the rapidly shrinking plates that had glued themselves together before the outer shell had broken free.

Jack marveled at the gaping hole
through the invisible bubble except where a bright ring circled the hole into the dark cloud beyond as the bubble's atmosphere started racing out it, creating a shrieking noise shaking the whole ship as it was dragged toward the much too small looking of a hole. Most of the external screens were only a blur.

"Weapons, God guns target the jagged spikes at the edge of the hole with crossed beams before they have a cha
nce to cool. They will tear the ship apart when we go through."

“Captain we can’t see shit to target sir.” The weapons Officer turned around to look at Jack stern eyes staring at him. “Ah but we will do our best sir.”

“Captain.” The pilot turned around. “I can’t see shit either with all the external pickup burned out. All I have is the basic mass sensors telling me roughly where the hole is but that is not good enough to thread the ship through it. I can’t even get it lined up so we don’t hit broadside.”

Jack looked around the bridge.
"Ok, we don't have time to send a shuttle through first even though we still have crews in them and their cooling fins are still working." Jack stood up. "Sensors, send most of the recon missiles through the hole and fan them out. Leave several inside behind us and see if you can use them to navigate by. Weapons, I said get those guns and point defenses, what is left of them, concentrated on the jagged edges of the whole damn it." His voice sounded a bit strained or disbelieving as he took the place of the 2nd Officer in the Pilots Chair patting him on the shoulder. "This is going to be frigging tight."

Jack started concentrating o
n the approaching hole below the ship as the screeching of the exiting atmosphere grew louder the closer they got. It would be like threading a needle when he took home economics class in school witch he was terrible at. He never could thread the damn sewing needles.

The problem with trying to line up the ship was that as soon as they got directly over the hole the reflection from the fireball at the center of the Bubble became so bright he could not see the hole anymore in the
blurry useless screens. Even with the screens set on maximum dampening. If the screen was dark enough to cut out the massive amounts of reflected light, he could not see the dark hole. “Cut the bridge lighting.” The Ensign ordered in a tone not to be ignored. The engineer reached over and dimmed the lights.