Battleship Destroyer (124 page)

"Well what do you think Captain?"
The Marine Commander smiled

"Don't really know what to think yet. I am still trying to figure out what
happened. Got any ideas?"

"Sure Captain, the plasma wave hit us but had been slowed down and compressed enough by the mass of the dense cloud to give us a push instead of swallowing us. It was this compression that we believe turned the plasma heated and compressed dust and material into carbon glass
or to be more exact one big diamond forming the bubble. The hulks gravity coils kept the acceleration low enough for us to survive until the bubble stopped expanding. Then the air leaking from the forward half blew a bubble from the crystal formed by the plasma. The hulks air system simply kept producing air and pumping it into the bubble thinking it was part of the ship until the bubble cooled enough and hardened. We added the fusion torch light and massive gravity repulse beam coil to the center after we figured out what we had. We thought we were going to be here a very long time and were making ourselves at home sir."

"Well that explains that. It even makes sense Commander. I am still a little afraid that I am
losing my mind and this and what we have been through is not real. Let's go take a look at this bubble if you don't mind Commander." Looking around at the aliens and crew streaming off the Transport.

"Yes sir. While we are doing that the crew will start loading the ship sir."
The Commander turned and started walking toward the central core elevator with Pan, the Ensign, and Gutner Dank following fully armed and ready.

"Ah no Commander, we have weeks of repairs to do on the ship
before we go anywhere." Turning back around to look at the hatch. "It is going to take days to cool the ship down just to be able to work on it again without suits." They walked out of the boat lock and Jack could not help noticing a big difference. The many compartments the other Spider ship that Jack had used the shuttle engines to blast open in an attempt to kill enough Apes to have time to load the marines and leave, was missing. 

Instead he was presented with a huge open area
over a thousand feet across with a bulkhead running from the end of the boat lock to the sides in both directions parallel to the outer hull, around to another boat lock hatch part of the way around the ship to each side of him. Another bulkhead ran on around from those boat locks to other boat lock hatches and then another before disappear past the core hull to what Jack presumed was another boat lock. The locks looked like they were spaced around the ship between each of the attachment points for the pylon/cooling fins for the Spider ship’s engines. "Ok, this is different. Nice and roomy with additional locks."

Pan
's twin walked up toward Jack and smiled. "This ship was built at a different production facility hundreds of light-years from the ship you were on, so minor cosmetic changes were made by the builders for various reasons when the factory was built, though the basic equipment is all the same.

The main elevator platform in the core could hold a hundred Apes in combat gear or several standard cargo containers so the dozen crewmen with Jack including the Ensign, Pan
, her twin and the Commander with half a dozen others left plenty of room. The platform took them up the central shaft into the middle of the Ape cold storage section of the ship before it stopped where the ripped and mangled core hull stopped. Looking down over the side of the thick hull of the core, Jack was surprised to see empty space between the inner core hull and the outer ships armored hull with its jagged edges reaching up to meld with the glass tube. The decks clear down to the main gun deck were gone. Only a few fragments of decks were attached to the outer hull down toward the gun deck, the rest of the hull that was left was smooth as if there had never been any decks attached. Jack tried to keep from getting sick at the thought that those missing decks had been filled with 10,000 living beings even if they had been Apes that would have easily killed them as look at them.

A newly built walkway lead across the empty void toward the outer hull, curving up until
it merged with the walkway running up the carbon glass surface up the side of the ship wide tube into the distant bubble and a ball of light and heat. As they walked up the tube they passed over a ring with what looked like a web attached to the outside and stretched out toward a ring around the outside face of the bubble a thousand feet away from the shoulder of the tube attached to the bubble. "Ok what is all that webbing outside the tube across the shoulder to the bubble?"

The Commande
r smiled shrugging his shoulders. "The Alien Chief engineer decided that the tube needed bracing to make sure it would never break off with time so they started running carbon cables between the side of the tube to the bubble to brace and relieve any tension or strain on the shoulder where the tube and bubble meet. If you look closely they also reinforced the shoulder with that carbon foam with a good sized fillet across the armpit. I don't think the ship's attachment finger is going anyplace without the help of a good sized bomb.

They walked over the
shoulder of the long tube and into the bubble making the Ensign gasp. Groups of aliens and humans were scattered around the bubble. A few were simply specks across the bubble on the other side miles away, the line of sight to them close to the bright light at the center.

The Commander noticed them looking at the scattered groups. "They are running tests on the bubble for composition and strength uniformity before anyone starts getting serious about converting it into a habitat. Though why these people insist on finishing the job
now before we go is beyond me."

"Well Commander, I have never he
ard of bubbles formed like this one or the one we just came out of before. They are just trying to understand this one in the hope of understanding the big one I bet." The Ensign said as she continued looking around. A half dozen cargo container shacks had sprung up off to one side of the tubes shoulder with people going to and from them.

"Captain, Duty officer, bridge, Comm has made contact with
a force of Destroyers coming up the passageway from the Check Point. They want battle instructions and the location of the enemy forces."

"Ok
... Put the Commander through." Jack noticed something arc up from the group of containers, flying around the bubble in great arcs and dives, barking up a storm with a tongue hanging out the corner of its mouth. He smiled up at it as it dove at them before returning to the shacks.

A figure on a bridge popped up above Jack's wrist comm as he held his arm out in front of him
, chest high. "Captain Turner, this is Vice Admiral Winston, with three reinforced squadrons of advanced heavy gun Destroyers sixteen hours from your location, I think. I need a sit rep and an up to date map. Our map of the passages and clear areas do not match what we are running into. Most of them are turning out to be dead ends in your direction. Over."

"Admiral Winston, I am glad to see you and
quite impressed. Three reinforced squadrons must mean some 72 ships not including resupply transports. Admiral Halsey must have scraped the barrel clean to put that big a force together." Jack noticed a Bigfoot that looked vaguely familiar with a child Bigfoot running along beside as the birddog took to the air again.  They left the shacks headed in their direction. Though Jack was a bit busy to more than notice them.

"Yes, she pulled a lot of strings to get us here
on a training exercise to test the new heavy gun Destroyers and the new torpedos. Now I need a Situation Report Captain, while I have time to deploy my forces. All I got from the transports fleeing the area was that the enemy fleet was making its way through the maze and you stayed behind to delay them and something about making tunnels through the clouds."

"Oh
, ah, yes, about that. I will open up Tactical to you but you are not going to believe it. None of the maps are accurate anymore since a massive fusion self-destruct explosion from one of the Spider Ships has probably scrambled things up quite a bit and may even have closed up most of the passageways." Thinking for a second. "But then there is a new passageway being blown back through the cloud in your direction and in time should be a nice freeway directly here at least. I will have my Exec send you the procedure we developed for making our own tunnels through the clouds so you can connect up to it. Though I am not sure how well they will adapt to the old reaction mass engines probably still on your Destroyers. If you have one of the new engine transport tankers they can do the tunnel digging easily for you."

Jack smil
ed until he glimpsed the damage control screen at the back of the Admiral's bridge as he walked across it showing a vaguely familiar Battleship Destroyer with Drop Tanks that could not possible be as the Admiral sat down in his Command chair with the camera following him cutting off the brief view of the screen on the back bulkhead. Shaking his head to clear the impossible from his mind. "My ship is in need of quite a few major repairs so I am stuck here attached to a captured spider hulk while we make repairs. As for the enemy ships, I don’t think you will find much left to target practice and train on. So Admiral, once you have had time to assess the contents and the situation, feel free to drop by for a visit and we can talk and I will show you some of our new toys. Captain Turner out."

"What?
Where are you? I see what looks like a wide open space behind you that is much too big to be on a ship.  And how are you going to make major repairs light years from a repair dock?"

"As I said Admiral, read the reports and
look at the Tactical and then get back to me. Sorry I did not leave you any of the fun but I do have some enemy boats complete with live Spider God Officers that need rounding up and a rough damaged pilotless Spider Command ship hell bent for the center of the cloud that could possible make repairs and return if it is not completely lost. Turner Out." Jack touched his wrist comm killing the image. "Bridge, Exec, authorize Tactical transmissions and send our tunnel making procedures and logged reports to The Rock, Admiral Hulsey, the Vice Admiral and the Fleet. Out."

Jack frown
ed resignedly as he looked around the bubble again not looking forward to meeting the Republic fleet that was headed for the ship. Then he saw the half-pint Bigfoot woman with reddish tinged hair walking up to him. She was wearing the same suit he had last seen her in with it still zipped down to her belly button and barely hiding her hug breasts. Nor did it hide the large round scar between her breasts where he had seen the blaster hit and kill her. At least that is what he had thought. "My Godstar! You are alive?" Smiling from ear to ear.

She smiled back as she knelt down in front of him and scooped him up into a bear hug
between breasts. "Your doctors and mine performed a miracle. Thank you Captain for rescuing my sister and trying to save me. I will always be your slave unless you still wish to marry me even with my new deformity."

Jack continued to hug her back with a smile. "What deformity? A little scaring is good for everyone. But what is this
? You are married and you are no one's slave not even mine, ever."

The Ensign crossed her arms narrowing her eyes at Jack.
Frowning.

"The scaring is only superficial and will heal in time baby. I am talking about the new rib cage your doctors had to replace mine with along with half my skeleton. The blaster round shattered my ribs
cracking my back bones and then they had to reinforce the rest of my skeleton to attach and accept the strain of the much harder ribs and back and. Well on down the line. Basically they used our crystal damage control growers and your human’s medical knowledge to grow me a new skeleton from the inside out without having to do major surgery. Though it has taken a bit of time." She let him go but held him at arm's length looking at him.

The Ensign started tapping her foot impatiently.

"I am just so glad you are alive Red. I was so certain you had gone and died on me. Now I feel rotten not checking up on you to find out for sure. How are you…? Well you must be doing well since you and your husband volunteered to help here on the hulk while we were gone."

"Ah, Captain. I refused to leave you and the ship but they made me with all the other wounded. A hundred and thirty two
of us in all whether we wanted to or not.  The medical facilities are better here I have to admit. Though they said I could have died if I would have stayed on the ship without the God equipment. My recovery was a combination of the three groups of expertise.” Getting a sudden sad look on her face. “As far as my husband… He died on our ship when you rescued us Captain. You ordered him to take some wounded Red Apes down to the Aid station and then check for and do what he could for other wounded Apes and humans alike. He saved many Apes and Humans when they were trapped during the many enemy assaults but during the last evacuation to the God Assault boat, he was killed trying to save one last Human."

"Oh Godstar. I am sorry Red. Now that you have told me
, I remember him I think, somewhat smaller than the other Bigfoots and I was wondering if he could handle a fully combat loaded wounded Ape after I told him to. But he scooped him up and headed out without slowing down." Looking down and bighting his lip. "You must hate me for ordering him to his death."

Red
grabbed ahold of Jacks arms as she held Jack back out at arm’s length leaning back away from him as she look into his eyes as she started speaking in a rough nasty sounding voice that hurt everyone's ears for several second before she stopped to take a breath.