Battleship Destroyer (29 page)

"It isn't them I
am worried about running Admiral. We know now they outnumber us in ships and their size. It is us being able to disengage and run if they start slaughtering us like they have done with every other squadron we have sent out there including the main fleet last year."

The Ensign heard that as she finely got enough feeling in her leg to move it, but stayed slumped in her chair. The Captain and Admiral were only some 6 feet away across the conference table and in perfect hearing distance. She was shocked at what she was hearing.

Again Jack went back to the calculations still wrapped around the compartment. "I can't get the thrust up to even what the old engines are at because of the thickness of the case needed to keep the engine from exploding from the forces creating the black holes. The existing case diameter is just too small."

While making a change the
Chief Engineer walked over. "Ah. Ok. Well.  I think this will work better." He cleared it and changed a couple of things and then leaned back.

"Ok, I had not thought of that but it does look
neater and should help." Jack went back to making minor changes on other highlighted spots and then sat back as the engine completed the redesign and started again. "What do you think of this?" He brought a section back around for the Chief to look at. "It works but I don't like it. There has to be a better or neater way. I think it is limiting the power we can get from each black hole as we push it down the tube." The Engine sat running smoothly at the power Jack had it at when it destroyed itself a few minutes before. "But it is still producing only half the thrust of the existing engines even if it does not require any reaction mass." Thinking for a few seconds. "Though without having to carry all the reaction mass, that may be good enough."

The Chief looked at the calculations for a good minute as Jack sat back waiting. Then
the Chief turned around and said. "Norm get over here. What do you think of this?"

Norm did not even bother getting up. "Sorry Chief but this is all way above my
head." With the Chief staring a hole through him Norm shifted in his seat. "But I do know someone that it probably isn’t Greek to, but she is not an engineer. Just an old physics nerd that works for United Engines."  Then shaking his head and smiling. "Oh. I forgot we do have the Research Directorate Department Head on one of the Other FMC's. You could have him and his crew brought over but I will give my friend a call and get her down here anyway." He raised his wrist comm and tapped it a few times then started talking into it. The silent setting on his comm sending out a low negative sound wave as he talked preventing anyone else hearing him speak let alone what he was hearing.

A rating c
ame in delivered a sandwich and soda to Jack and left. Getting up Jack increased the power a little bit before the calculations started turning red and he reduced it back again. Then moved away from the table trying to get room to eat as several more officers came over and started adding their two credits worth of wisdom. Taking a bite out of the sandwich and then a drink he sat down in one of the chairs away from the conference table against the bulkhead as the engine continued running smoothly, still at only half the original engines thrust level.

Taking a deep breath to relax, he set the sandwich and drink down, stood and
tried to stretch but the jacket was just too tight not even allowing him to raise his arms very far. Jack took off the jacket and stretched his arms up and out and around taking big breaths and smiling. Sitting down he continued to eat.

"
Damn it Admiral!" The Red Dwarf's Captain said.  "They can out run us with enough ships to surround any trap we set according to our latest drone Photo’s. We need to retreat into harassing attacks to slow the enemy down while we evacuate systems. Until we can at least double the fleets size and get them reequipped with this new engine as well as the new hotter 24 inch weapons finally coming off the production lines. You know our battleship's 16 inch gun tubes were only installed in the turrets as a stop gap measure while the bugs are worked out of the 24inch high temperature gun tubes. Not to mention the ships the other empires are sending to help."

"
No Captain." said the Admiral. "We are about to enter battle and if everything goes as planned we will liberate New Mexico and put an end to any threat to the rest of the republic and we don’t need guns that may never be ready or the help of a dozen enemy Empires that are just as likely to turn their guns on us as to help us." Looking up at the engine with the bright donut ring around the inside of its stern and the long pole and bright light at its end. "This engine can be introduced into the fleet next year with the new 24inh main guns if they do show up when all the bugs are worked out and the engine is producing enough power and we have had time to produce enough of them if we still need them. The enemy is going to be gone after this battle or I am going to die trying."

Looking up at the engine
the Captain shook her head. "Bullshit Admiral you have never lead from the front but with the discrepancy between our ships and theirs you just may get your wish. With what these calculations are showing us, the enemy definitely have the speed and acceleration to fly rings around our fleet as we have observed in the past. Even if we had unlimited reaction mass for every ship Admiral. But we don't. We have to retreat. We have accomplished our mission and found out what we need to do to defeat the enemy. If we don't throw our fleet away now."

The
calculations changed as the Chief hit the input icon and the engine blew up sending millions of pieces rushing out across the compartment making everyone duck involuntarily. Strange fire balls and black holes danced where the engine once sat over the table.

The Admiral turned to the Captain.
"My orders are to stop them here." Looking up at the dancing fireballs. "It could take years for the experts to finish developing this so called Blackhole engine."

“Bullshi
t Admiral, this was only supposed to be a reconnaissance in force and you are turning it into a major battle trying to rescue your family. You know as well as I do that it will take them at least 6 months to strip this system before moving on to the next if they follow past performance with plenty of time for your family to make it to the hills and disappear like many have on the other planets. The enemy does not seem too interested in chasing down the locals as long as they are left alone to strip the planet of everything useful to them. That should not change unless you change the dynamic and get the fleet massacred leaving nothing to keep them from taking the rest of the Republic now. They already destroyed the hundred ship fleet we sent out there a year ago. Not even giving them a chance to transmit a report back of what killed them. Now we know and that makes this mission over.”

“No it does not! This mission is not over until I say it is over.  The fleet a year ago was made up of mostly reserve Battleships  some of which were a hundred years old with most having only 10 an
d 12 inch main guns and only a couple dozen had half way modern 14 inch guns. We now have over two hundred brand new 16 inch gunned Battleships and we are going to put an end to these monsters now and rescue my family.”

“A
dmiral we are up against Five hundred top of the line battleships at least. We could be up against a thousand battleships twice our size with guns that our intelligence people now know, are at least 36 inch guns with twice our range from long range scans along with these sensor images and now we find out from this young man that they can run us down and surround us and slaughter every last ship if we attack. Just like they did to the last fleet we sent out which was the only thing we did learn about the last battle from the few cryptic radio messages and long range scans that did make it out. We have seen enough and need to leave now. You need to recall the fleet from the assemble area and return the fleet to its picket positions while we rearm with the new 24 inch guns and re-engine with these new engines.”

“
What! How did you find out about the size of their main guns? I slapped a hold on that information below flag rank let alone getting back to The Rock.” Staring at Captain Halsey, his eyes dropped down to her collar for a second with the Admiral stars on it and his face turned red. “I am in command here and I say when this recognizance in force has seen enough Vice Admiral / Captain!” Standing up, the Admiral started to leave and saw Jack across the table sitting in his rating uniform with First Class patches on his sleeves. "What the hell! You brought me down here to see a programing joke by some First class Gravtech."

Someone reset the simulation after making more program changes and the engine only ran for a few seconds spewing a flaming tail out the back and
through the compartment side bulkhead before turning into a big black hole.

The Red Dwarf's Captain turned to face the Admiral.
"Well my orders tell me to abandon your fleet with taskforce 58 or half the Dwarfs if I think the battle is lost once we find out what we need to know about the enemy while you set up a holding action to buy us time and try to evacuate Chandra before the enemy reaches it. The other Taskforce Admiral has the same orders concerning Epsilon Cordon though he has more time with Epsilon Cordon five lights farther from the enemy. As it stands, with the new intelligence we have just gotten from the single scout of a dozen we sent in that survived long enough to report today. I have no choice but to leave your taskforce as soon as we reach the assembly point in order to stand a chance of having enough time to evacuate the systems I am charged with evacuating." The Captain took a breath as Jack noticed the stars on her collar beside the Captain's Oak leaves. "You do not stand a chance in driving the enemy out of that system and rescuing your family. You have to retreat and give the fleet time to expand and re-engine before we commit to the only battle we will get a chance to conduct if things go wrong."

"I
cannot believe you are going to end your career on the crazy ramblings of a damn tech fresh out of high school. The damn engine does not even work in the computer simulations."

"This
1st class tech Admiral, I have found out in the last hour, is the Grandson of the inventor of the engines our fleet is using now.  He has PhD's that make my credentials look like a high school diploma not to mention that half his education records are signed by the Inventor himself Dr. Turner.  I spent a week at a conference on propulsion with the man and learned more from him in that short time than years with a dozen professors at Earths best universities. This young man had him every day for 18 years. I would take what he says as gold Admiral. And just in case you have not noticed, the engine does work at its designed thrust."

"You would
abandon my fleet because of this turd." The engine blew up again over their heads, the Captain giving Jack a quick frustrated look as the Admiral continued. "I knew that man a lot better than you Captain, having spent time as an attaché in the Research Directorate Institute when he was Director and he was finally kicked out when he could not salve the anomaly problem with the new Battleship Engines design. He kept talking crazy about dumping the new engine for a pie in the sky engine no one believed was possible. After spending billions on developing that engine. The Deputy Director finally had him committed and kicked out with the approval of the Senate over the then Presidents objections and one thing I am certain of. He is an intolerant crazy bastered and I feel sorry for anyone that grew up in the same family as him. Now that I know this kid is probably as crazy of a loon as his grandfather, with the smarts to trick everyone into thinking the impossible. I have no reason to change my original assumption. There is no such thing as a Black hole drive and all the stupid reports about the enemy being more powerful than us, are nothing but bullshit by a bunch of unpatriotic treasonous saboteurs that will be charged and spaced as soon as I win this battle and free the planet. Hell, I will be the next President of the Republic and heads will start to roll then."

The Admiral hit some keys in front of him and a screen on the bulkhead came to life showing an enemy ship close up. It had a long
ballooned forward section that looked to be a series of large separated decks stacked up taking up ¾ of the length of the ship from the bow, with all the weapons and what looked like targeting radars sticking out around the sides from the narrower stern section with 8 engines at the stern on short pylons. "Now you had better get with the program. The engines simply have to be so efficient that they use so little react mass that we cannot see the stream spewing from the engines.   But they still have to use reaction mass. Why else would they have such long hulls in front of the weapons section of their ships? It has to be all the reaction mass tanks. A great place to put the tanks to act as shields if you ask me. Good protection. I have contacted the Fleet Design Directorate and they are designing a new Battleship using that layout now that they have shown us the design but we are going to retake that system, rescue my family and hold the enemy here until those ships are ready."

"Sorry Admiral." Jack could not believe he had spoken. The fact that everyone heard him in the silence that fallowed
the Admiral's statement made him want to crawl under the chair. But one thing his grandfather had taught him. Once you started a hypothesis, you had to finish no matter how stupid it was or suffer even worse consequences. "That does not explain the black hole at the stern sir."