Battleship Destroyer (26 page)

"The New Mexico system the Captain announced that was evacuated. The Orange Dwarf did that in a couple of months and in one trip."

"What? But we are establishing a line that will stop them. I hear we are producing 2 new battle ships every week and that will be doubled in a few months. We can't lose can we?"

S
he looked around frowning, then motioned Jack to come over beside her as she typed. Jack looked at her screen and gasped. The ensign gasped as well as Jack leaned into her to get a better look at the screen and she took in a deep breath as she tried to back up, but the chair would not let her, leaving her lips only inches from his cheek. She tried to reach for her pocket stun gun but he was too close to get her arm around for her to reach it. Confusing memories came flooding back to her. A strange battleship crossed the screen that looked more like a spider than a battle ship. With 4 long tubes on pylons sticking out the back like legs and a half dozen arms hanging out to the sides ending in long poles sticking out forward around a wide group of discs across the front of the barrel shaped central body, it looked like a huge strange spider. The reason they had earned the name Spider ships. Noticing Jack starring at it. “That is one of their Battlecruisers.” She whispered into his ear. “Only the longer ones with more guns and engines have been labeled as Battleships.

Looking at the details along the
side Jack noticed an area in the gap between the barrel hull and the group of what looked like a stack of thick plates hanging out front with boats covering the open deck between them. Reaching out he tapped the freeze icon and zoomed in onto the gap between the barrel and the deck above and onto the boats. They kept growing and growing and seeing the hatches on the backs of them and the suited figures frozen in mid steps around them Jack realized those were big boats with many turrets on the sides of the boats telling him they were large assault boats.

Zooming out again Jack realized that was one big frigging ship. He did not notice the gal staring at him breathing
rapidly in his ear, sweat beading across her pale face as he tapped the resume icon. But her smell without Jack realizing it, started awakening long dead memories and feelings in him. Shaking his head to get rid of the strangeness, he concentrated on the screen in front of him ignoring the woman he was leaning against that could not seem to catch her breath on the verge of a panic attack.

Th
en the scene panned out to show hundreds, maybe thousands of the big spider ships in the distance lined up in a huge wall. Only those ships seemed to have many decks stacked up in front with many more legs hanging out around the sides as he zoomed in onto the formation but before he could get much detail the picture started graining up into blurring, leaving him with the impression that most of the hulls where stacked decks as well. The Ensign took a deep breath and whispered into his ear. "Those are their Battleships. We don't know for sure how big those are but several things are definite, their weapons are more powerful while their smaller Battlecruiser ships are much faster than our fastest scouts using some kind of drive that does not seem to require reaction mass from what I can figure." Every ship in the wall seemed to flash bright bluish white beams off to the side and then a few seconds later several of the nearest Battlecruisers lit up as they fired their guns in the camera's direction and then the screen went blank. "Once contact has been made, only a few ships have escaped a system in the last year. Usually from hiding if they were far enough away to begin with. This is part of the newest Intel from the scout drones sent into the last taken system. The area the scouting fleet is scheduled to enter."

"My god. And we are going into that mess with this thing. It's a suicide mission for us. At
least the battle ships can run." Jack stepped away from her placing some distance between them as he finally realized how close she was and uncomfortable it made him feel.

Trying not to look at him as she stared at her screen.
"What? Not even close. Think about it. The battle ships are limited in how fast they can run because of the limited amount of reaction mass they can carry and all their armor. Even the new ships with 4 times the tankage. We on the other hand have almost an unlimited supply. If anyone can out run them, we can if we have a long enough head start. That is what we were designed and built for." And then thinking to herself as tears came to her eyes. "He doesn't remember or recognize me the ass hole." She thought about reminding him with her pocket stunner between his legs as she reached for it. Then shook her head. "No he never did touch me the ass hole." But a part of her mind did not care.

"1st
Class Turner come here please." Jack turned from the screen and the Ensign as she put something back into her pocked. He walked over to Willis, trying to absorb what the Ensign had said. Tom was on one of those Battleships. Thank god his family was headed for the opposite side of the Republic according to the last letter he had gotten from them. But that did not help Tom. "Have you been paying attention Turner?"

"Sorry. I was getting
briefed on the battle situation."

"What? Battle
briefing? Damn it. The gravcoils are making the officers space sick. They keep varying in intensity and direction. The 3rd officer has just been taken to sickbay after falling and hitting his head."

Jack looked at her and thought for a second and realized that he had felt the
variations since he entered the compartment and as he just walked over. He started walking around and smiled as he realized that in the gloom of the bridge he could see the haze of the powerful grav field wavering across the bridge making large bumps at strange angles. A lot more power than what was needed. "Sorry. After 18 years on transports I don't feel or see it anymore. Or should I say pay attention to it. But it is simple to fix. Where is your compartment's deck maintenance board?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You can drop and lock the deck plates back down."

"Not until you tell me what the hell you are talking about."
Willis said loud enough to carry across the compartment.

The Captain'
s screens dropped down around her as she turned to look at them.

Jack was facing away from and did not notice that he had the Captains attention. "Simple
Willis. All the high powered electronic equipment in these consoles are interfering with the gravcoil control circuits. Every time someone changes a setting or moves across a coil or past a console, the control circuits get confused. I bet that some yard puke fine-tuned the bridge coil controls with no one in the compartment and no equipment on and set both the sensitivity and power on high to make sure the officers did not get space sick. If you will show me the maintenance console for this compartment, I can retune the coil controls to account for all the variables now that the equipment is on and manned and smooth things out. Now be a good First Class and close up the deck before one of these poor space sick officers fall in and hurt themselves." Jack smiled at his joke as he started looking around for the maintenance console only to spot the Captain staring at him.

Turning white he froze
for a second then he tried to make himself as small as possible dropping his shoulders, bending his knees, spreading his legs, ready to run. Looking down and away he waited for the hammer of fate to descend on his head. After a couple of seconds nerves forced him to do something and he reached down and closed the deck plate next to him and Willis and locked it. Then started going around closing others as he made his way toward the hatch and off the bridge.

The Captain watched Jack closing the deck plates
and turned to her First Officer. "Mr. McCaferty; will you have someone show First Class Willis where the deck's maintenance console is located please."

Willis
turned from staring at Jack to look at the Captain. "Turner; get your butt back over here and follow me to the Maintenance console. The rest of the detail can close the deck plates." She did not need to be shown the decks damn maintenance console.

A half hour later Jack walked back and forth across the bridge starring at a
hand sensor screen Willis had given him trying to suppress even a little smile as his eyes had already told him that the compartment's gravity fields were smoothed out and even across the compartment and barely perceptible. Finally he stopped next to the maintenance console sitting in the corner and First Class Willis. "Looks good and flat to me. You can lock it down. But one problem that may surface is that if we backed off on the sensitivity too much there may be a slight delay during rapid changes in thrust or high gee fast maneuvers. I am not familiar enough with this ship abilities yet to be sure our settings are perfect. If I had the ships specks and detailed plans and a few hours to run the proper calculations I could be more accurate. But not enough to be worth the effort when it will only take a few minor adjustments if and when problems do crop up. Something the officer on the Master Gravboard watch could do in a few seconds if it does happen."

"Ok. If making the adjustments is so easy why did you say you are used to the fluctuations on you
r transport?" Willis said put off.

"It takes a lot of power to change a gravity f
ield and the faster you change it the more power it takes, due to its wave mass on top of maintaining it. By keeping the sensitivity down as well as the density of the field itself low, you can cut the power needed to maintain the gravity field as well as changing its intensity and direction to a small fraction, saving fuel when you count the whole ship. If you want I can show you the calculations that prove the engineering. Ahhh... how much quantum physics have you had? No it doesn't matter. I think I can dumb it down enough for anyone to understand. After all, if my granddad could dumb it down enough for me when I was 8, I should be able to do it for you."

"Forget it. I really don't care that much. I was just
curious. Let's go, the dinner bell has rung."

"Well I do." First Officer McCaferty
walked up. "How the hell can a snot nosed 1st class know anything about gravity theory. I think you are talking out your ass. You probably read a few articles and think you can impress the cunt to get her in your bunk. Try explaining it to me and don't worry about my education level or dumbing it down for me."

Jack swallowed taking a deep breath and smiled. "Yes you
’re right lieutenant. I just read a couple of articles. Can we go now? I really don't want to miss chow."

"You will more than
miss chow if you don't follow my orders and that is Commander. Now explain it to me and be quick about it so you don't miss chow."

"A thousand years of advanced physics and you want it in a minute. Ok
... have you heard of the Butaan principle of gravity wave mass propagation?"

"Who
hasn’t? Go on."

"How about the Phenolly theory of particle
and wave mass resonance? The Johnson curve and Morlies gravity bounce wave distribution and Hancock's subspace entry dynamics and…."

"So you know a bunch of names. That does not mean you know the theory behind them and what they mean and how they apply to gravity coils."

"Well if you don't know them then I have to explain each and every one of them and a half dozen more for you to understand why you don't have to drive a coil at maximum power to make it work efficiently and we are looking at hours just to explain coil drive dynamics." Jack suddenly looked past the officer with a stare.  "Fact is if you drive a coil that has dense enough windings (like the coils in our latest engines and deck gravity coils), too hard or overdrive the coil according to one theory and hints from a bunch of others, you can actually punch a hole into subspace and create a black hole that can fuck up everyone's whole… day. Not to mention what it does to the engine….  And.  And...”

Jack pushed past the C
ommander, going back to the damage control screen and the Ensign that had showed him the enemy fleet. "Show me again the enemy Spider Cruiser as it passes." Put it on the main damage control screen." The ensign gave Jack a strange look but did as he requested as the Commander walked up behind Jack. "Freeze that frame." Jack practically shouted.

"There! That’s it! That is their drive
. See the long tubes clustered around the stern and the bright ring at the stern of each tube with a bright line that disappears into a dark pin point a ways behind the engine and then a bright flash aft of that. They are using massively overdriven coils to create a string of black holes that are anchored in subspace to push their ships against without having to use reaction mass." Turning to the Commander. "Call your ships back from the recon raid and get the hell out of here sir."

"What the hell are you talking about moron
?” The Commander could not believe his ears.

Pointing to the bright line
s streaking from the long pods hanging around the side of one of the closest ships that just missed whatever was taking the video. "The bright bluish white of their lasers tell us that their weapons are millions of degrees hotter than our sick yellow flashlight toys and now we know their ships do not need reaction mass making them faster than ours with unlimited range and the number they have in that wall is enough to slaughter us without us getting a shot at them. But we are in luck Commander. We now know how to build a massless drive as good as theirs and that we need to upgrade our guns to be at least as good as the Enemy Spider ship's guns."