Battleship Destroyer (57 page)

The C
aptain uncrossed her arms putting them on her hips. "Yes you failed a lot for an 8 year old but you were stubborn and you learned to do the jobs yourself and then handle men and get the assignments done quiet efficiently and too a credit to yourself over the years, I will add. You worked hard and over the years an hour or two a night sometimes, or not for weeks sometimes and even once in a while for whole weekends. You slowly learned and got your ass promoted. Promotions you worked hard at and deserved. And if you were in the Navy at the time, promotions that would have been real on real ships like this one. In The Navy Training Game you are a damn fine officer. I know. I have spent days reviewing the detailed Game records The Game keeps to track of on all players. Surprisingly to me, even the civilian players from pirated games as soon as they went on line and The Game down loaded the most current updates and made the proper changes to whatever system you were on. I did not know before a couple of weeks ago, but thanks to you and the Ensign, I now know that The Game went out of its way to train civilian crewmen.”

“
I watched you perform miracles in The Game. Watched you take ship after ship into orbit and land. Command ship after ship in ship assaults and combat maneuvers against desperate odds that The Game loves to use to chew up experienced Commanders into raw meat and spit them out as garbage and yet you prevailed. Real battles from recorded past, that happened with real fleets that you seem to do the impossible with and win when the original fleet lost. Not that you are perfect. You have done some pretty stupid things and lost as well but not very often. But. Right now that does not matter."

Bending over to look Jack close in the eyes. "You lea
rned to lead crewmen in The Game Mr. Turner. Crewmen that are real crewmen in every respect including their actions and feelings and they grew to love and trust you. Even the half that were your own ship mates off your Turner Joy. Which is a lot more difficult to do in The Game than real life which is why a young Ensign loves you even if you are too stupid to realize it. Thank Godstar that your shipmates did not know who you were in real life or you probably would have had half the ship defending you from your family and never have been allowed to, if you had still wanted to, leave your ship. You also learned to undock a damn ship and take it out to target practice on enemy ships you had taken just for the fun of it. I watched you do it dozens of times after you decided some ships were not worth salvaging." She stared into Jack's eyes for a full minute as that sunk in and he looked at the Ensign. "Now you are going to think of this as just another exercise for you to have fun with in The Game and take this crew and this ship like you have done a hundred times in The Game and test your gun up grade Mr. Turner. Now!" The Captain turned around and returned to her seat at the back bulkhead.

Jack watched her sit down and then turned back around to see
half the bridge crew and then the Ensign starring open mouthed at him. The Ensign's mouth turned into a big smile. "Your orders Captain Turner."

Jack took a deep breath, swallowed and with a tight lipped grimace said. "Ok
Gentlemen. Prepare the ship to undock from this hulk. All stations report. Engineering, start your engines. Bring them up to idle. Single up all mooring lines. Seal the locks and report pressure tests. Personnel, muster the crew. I do not want to leave anyone behind."

The Captain raised an eyebrow. She had already mustered the crew but he could not know that and adding that to the list of prelaunch checks was a nice surprise.

"I see we have the Admiral's Barge back aboard. Prepare the Admiral's Barge to
launch and observe the test. Weapons, tell the gun deck I want an observer to report to the boat bay and the Admiral's barge. Cargo Chief, I want every piece of cargo's tie down chains double checked. We have a lot of big odd shaped equipment laying in the holds and the engine head deck. "

Fifteen minutes later the ship was ready but Jack just sat there studying the screens around him. Frowning the Captain shook her head sadly. "Damn
. He was starting to shape up too." She started to get up. Unbuckling her seatbelt. "I was just expecting too much from the boy."

"Personnel, I still do not have a muster. What is taking so long?"

The Captain stood for a few seconds then turned to look down at the seat she had been sitting in and then her first officer. "Number One, I am going to my day cabin where I can be comfortable. Besides it is too easy to interfere with me on the bridge and looking over his shoulder. Once we are away from the hulk you can join me for a couple of drinks. Since someone did not bother to follow my orders to empty the liquor cabinet before we left."

The
Captain left to the sound of. "Captain leaving the Bridge." Announcement.

The ship undocked a few minutes later
after the muster report came in. "Sensor's, scan the hulk for life signs. Boat deck, you can launch the Admiral's Barge when ready." The ship took up position a few thousand miles from the hulk. The fleet had retreated even farther behind the Parsley. Without station keeping thrusters of her own, the hulk started slowly tumbling as out gassing from many of the cracked compartments started acting on it.

Scanning the ship as they drifted out from the hulk Jack turned to the science station. "I can't see any signs of life. What about you Ensign Reeves?"

"Sorry Mr. Turner but no energy readings or hot spots sir."

"Thank you Ensign." 
Changing the Command chair screens to access the weapons screens Jack smiled as he hit his comm. "Gun deck. You have permission to fire when ready."

The gun fired a few minutes later after a short count down. The
bright white beam streaked across the short distance slicing through the ship like butter. Jack studied the readouts a little disappointed. He was hoping that it would have a bluish ting to it. Looks good Gun deck. I want a full examination of everything including the barrel before we do another shot with that barrel but let's hit the hulk with one of our standard beams to get a comparison. Command out." A minute later a turret on the that side of the ship put a now sick looking yellow beam into the hulk that only went half way through. Shaking his head in disbelief Jack watched the examination of the gun and power feed system on his monitors. Masses of information flooded his screens as they did each test. The results making him smile until they came to the Barrel lining of the gun. The wear pattern and statistics did not bode well even if they were better than he had feared.

Finally
the Gun deck came back on the Comm. "Command, everything checks out above specks. Permission to fire another shot?"

"Permission granted Gun deck." Jack sat back and waited. A half minute later after a short countdown the gun fired again and
Jack smiled at the screen showing the view from the barge. The beam was still white hot as it went completely through the hulk again this time from stem to stern. Not as good as the enemy’s bluish white beam but a hell of a lot better than the old ship's gun's yellow beams were. "Run another check on the guns Chief and we will try again from a little longer range." Jack said to the Gun deck. "Navigator plot a course out to 10,000 miles from the hulk please and hold. Pilot, execute when ready."

After a dozen shots with the ship at ever increasing ranges Jack was starting to relax when on the 13 shot the outer half of the gun barrel blew up sending molten metal scrap racing away in all directions and bouncing off the hull.

"Damn!
Damage Control Report damage to the ship." Jack shook his head frowning.  "According to our last reading we should have gotten another dozen shots from the damn thing at least. Gun deck, Chief, what happened?"

"I think it was a flaw in the barrel sir. Not criti
cal with the old yellow beams but evidentially is with the upgrade. Even then we would be lucky to get another dozen rounds even on a perfect barrel sir. Not very good for combat sir."

"That depends on how much combat we have to do but you
are right we have to find something to line the barrel. Run your checks and I will schedule a meeting later to go over everything with the Captain." Jack cut the connection, got out of the command chair and started pacing back and forth across the bridge. "Pilot, let's go back and check out exactly what kind of damage the new beam shots did to the hulk. Comm, tell the crew to stand down from gun stations." As the announcement to set condition 4 echoed through the ship, Jack continued to pace as he used his personal comm to talk to the research teams for ideas.

Jack suddenly stopped. "Comm, Captain please."

"Yes Mr. Turner. You did not completely forget about higher Command after all."

"Sorry Captain. The test went well until it didn't. The beam was white hot
as expected and initial tests showed we should have gotten from 20 to 30 shots before the barrel would need to be relined but a flaw in the barrel caused the beam to fall apart and slagged the barrel. They are cleaning up the mess and checking for damage to the mount now. I will inform you when the damage results are in.  Crews are already installing the Capacitors on the other guns."

"Not much of a weapon Mr. Turner if
we can only get 13 shots from a barrel before it destroys itself."

"We are working on that now
but we do have a few spar barrels at least.  It may be possible to adapt the plasma pipe technology to line the barrel so the beam never touches the barrel but that would mean reducing the size of the beam by several inches even if we bore out the barrel a bit if it will still handle the pressures. Though a smaller barrel tube may result in an even hotter beam if we can get the beam generator to cooperate and not burn itself out."

"Very well Mr. Turner. Carry on."

"Oh a Captain. It would go much faster if I could be relieved to help with the effort sir."

"No. We are running 6 and 18 (6 hours on watch, 18 hour
s off duty) Mr. Turner and you need the command time. Especially the boring seemingly wasted hours under your belt that The Game does not provide. You have a lot to learn yet even if you did just earn yourself a promotion to full Lieutenant. And while you are on the comm. We are coming up on the point we need to start decelerating to the Rock. The Thyme is going to lead the fleet. You just have to put the ship into its assigned place in the squadron when Fleet Assembly is called and then follow the leader. You have done it a hundred times in The Game, so I know you can do it. Carry on Lieutenant Turner. Captain out."

Jack looked up to see the whole bridge looking at him smiling. He suddenly realized that he was on open bridge wide com and everyone had heard.

"Congratulations Mr. Turner." Said the Navigator next to the Ensign.

The Ensign turned her head to smile up at him as she brought the ship around to head for the hulk. "Coming to
course 310 mark 72, Lieutenant Turner. We will be beside the hulk in 30 minutes sir."

As Jack continued to pace across the bridge
as everyone kept congratulating him on his promotion to his shock and aaw.  As he paced with half the crew insisting on talking to him about The Game and their exploits in it, he started getting too embarrassed to continue. Jack finally sat down in the Command chair just to stay away from them and in a few minutes he was again in deep thought about the gun problem and when he could not stand not doing anything any longer he cut the Command chair terminal into the production design system the development teams were using and got to work. Keeping an eye on what was happening around him and what needed to be done for the ship, slowed his development work down considerably even as he assigned more people from the other teams to help. Finally he looked up and around at the bridge crew and the Ensign in particular and realized that it was just like The Game he was so familiar with. He started to relax and enjoy being on the bridge. After all it was just, The Game.

-------------

The Captain sat back in her easy chair watching the screens around her which were carbon copies of the command chairs screens Lieutenant Turner was hard at work at on the bridge. Her First Officer turned from the terminal he was working at next to the foot of her folded up bunk. "Captain you won't believe this. The Game has suddenly been flooded with officers and crewmen putting in training time. How did that information travel so fast? No one has left the bridge yet."

"Word of mouth is faster than light Number One. I will bet you that the same thing is happening on every ship in the fleet."

"No. sir. Not taking that sucker bet. But it is a lot of risk promoting Mr. Turner so fast just to get the crews back to The Game sir. I still do not understand why?"

The Captain turned around to look at her First Officer
and took a sip realizing that he probably never would. "After our first encounter and win with the enemy. Or should I say successful encounter. We finally have enough evidence to prove that we are going to need thousands of smaller ships and not just the hundreds of Battleships Command originally was thinking. The Asteroid factory Destroyer output turns out not to be such a waste after all. Especially now I know where I can get the crews, not to mention Captains for all those new ships. We just need to use the full Training capability of The Game. Besides we were or should I say already are lacking thousands of officers needed just for the planed Battleships." Taking a sip of her drink. "No. I did not realize how good The Game was at training crewmen even though I have known about The Game for 50 years since it was first proposed. Like most Commanders, even though there are standing orders for crewmen to use the game as much as possible for training, I basically forgot about it and never checked on crew training time spent in The Game.  In peace time there was no reason to. But now it is a resource that has to be used to its fullest capability if we are going to win this war. That means pushing it on the civilian masses as much as possible as well as the fleet. Mr. Turner is the first step in that drive. Tell me Number One, how much use has the game gotten since I ordered the Exec to increase training time for the fleet ah, last week?"