Battleship Destroyer (81 page)

The Doctor turned to one of his medics. "Get me a bunch of those air packs off the other bodies and test what is in them. As soon as I go over this guy we will be taking him into the shuttle."

Jack spent a good half hour organizing the removal of as many weapons as they could pack into the shuttles that kept arriving. Making sure they had a good sampling of the different types of weapons in the racks scattered around the deck. Some of them taking two power armored marines to move them.  But finally with a report from a scout on the deck above, Jack headed for the nearest trunk going up. As he started through the hatch the Commander gave Jack one of the assault guns off a rack and a much too large pouch with power packs. Showing him how to use the weapon. When Jack protested trying to push the weapon away the Marine commander smiled. "Sorry Captain but you are going to be armed with the best available or my men will throw you on the nearest shuttle. I am not going to lose a Captain to stupidity. The next time shit starts flying and you insist on heading for the gunfire, you are going to be well armed at least." As Jack started to go through the hatch again the Commander motioned a squad to follow. "Oh Captain. This is the 3rd landing zone we have open right now. I can't guard another until we close the one below in another 15 minutes. Please don't go too far up until I can free the troops to follow you."

Jack
looked up for a few seconds and then glanced at the Commander. "Very well Commander. I just want to check the Magazine on the deck above. Hopefully they will have power packs for our new weapons. I want to see what it will take to get too them and transfer them down to this weapons deck to load them." Jack started climbing the ladder in the trunk as the marines followed him.

Tapping his arm comm
, Jack started talking as he started gulping air as he climbed. "Ensign, how you doing down there?"

"Oh Jack. I heard you lost a couple of marines to a fire fight. Sorry
Hun. Are you alright? You sound winded. Do you need help? It would not take long to jump on the shuttle just getting ready to leave and drop up there to help."

"No. We are fine. I am climbing a ladder headed for the next deck up. We have a live prisoner so I just may call mission accomplished when I find the magazine for all the
weapons we just found. How far down are you and what have you found?"

"We are going
through the birthing decks and you will not believe what we are finding. There must be a dozen species crewing this vessel and I think even some, (if not half the crew) could be slaves."

"Ok
. That makes sense. Ah have you found a big ape lizard yet. The enemy ship's marines. It is cold blooded and hard to detect alive and very deadly. Fact is, send up your shuttle and get a load of their weapons for your marines. Our laser guns are worthless against these monster's armor. Hold your position until you can rearm."

"That sounds good
, it is taking time to go through all the compartments and what looks like a library with translation and teaching books and programs for teaching different races a central language. I will have my next shuttle stop by on its way back from the ship. It will be up there in a few minutes. Out."

Jack stopped to catch his breath
outside the next decks hatch as he tapped his comm again. "Commander we need another landing bay down there. The lower platoon is sending up its shuttle for the enemy weapons. Hopefully I will have more weapon charge mags for you in a few minutes. Out." Tapping his Comm again. "Number One, we need another landing port in the deck below please."

"Yes sir, monitoring you transmissions and
blasting one now.”

A marine joined Jack on the grated deck next to him as Jack hit the hatch release and it opened. The deck was brightly lit compared to
the gun deck below. Jack headed toward the center of the deck they were on meeting the original scouts.

Jack was hoping the
core shaft elevators would have some kind of magazine handling system. But no marine was stupid enough to take the elevator anyplace on any ship unless they already controlled both ends.  They passed side corridors running around the ship lined with heavy hatches on the hull side of each corridor. Now that they knew the enemy could really be deadly, his enthusiasm for exploring had vanished. Though it was not the terror he had felt when they first landed. He now knew what the unknown was and he just wanted to get off the hulk before he lost any more men. All he wanted to do was find the stupid power pack magazines and grab packs for the larger weapons they had not found power packs for down below and get out of there. Besides they were running out of time with the enemy’s main fleet barreling in on them.

He came out onto the central core
with several Apes watching hatches in the core with their weapons raised and their backs to the passageway they had come down. His heart suddenly caught in his throat before it started beating fast enough to beat out his chest. He slid back behind the corner of the passageway dragging the two marines with him. Looking around he motioned the 4 other marines following him to catch up. He spread them out in a line and whispered. "From left to right, One, Two, Three, Four, Five. I will take the 6th to the far right and you." Pointing to the last marine. Take out anyone that gets missed or does not look dead." 

Jack peaked around the corner as the marines squatted down or crawled out
around the corner exposing as little of their bodies as possible.

"Three,
two," Jack took carful aim. "One, and fire." Jack squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. As 5 bright balls, then a sixth a half second later streaked out to hit the 6th as the first 5 Apes fell to the deck. As they dropped falling away from the gasses spraying out the side closest to the marines Jack dropped his gun from his shoulder and looked down at it.

A marine reached up and flicked the safety off. "Shoots a lot better Captain with the safety off. I like where they put it but I don't like the pistol grip being made short for only 3 fingers
even if they are big fingers." Looking up at Jack turning red. "Don't be embarrassed Captain, it takes a lot of practice to remember the safety in combat." Slapping Jack on the shoulder he flicked the safety back on then walked down the corridor and headed around one side of the core with two marines while three others headed the other way with their weapons up and ready to fire. The seventh marine waited with his weapon ready checking the passageways leading from the core and the Ape bodies.

Shaking his head
after looking carefully through the core as he followed the marines. This time he fired as they took out several Apes guarding the hatches on the other side. Jack finally felt confident that he could see the relatively cold apes and looked around the deck as he walked over to the core and the hatches. Finding no other relatively cool Apes around, he studied the hatches. Picture symbols were etched in the metal next to each hatch, making it clear what each hatch was for. The one on the right showed what looked like a platform conveyor chain lift. The other a standard elevator car.  Punching the button with the worn down arrow on the conveyor lift, the right hatch opened and the conveyor started. Expecting a clanking chain he was surprised to see a solid state gravity coil lift platform.

Turning he walked to the nearest armored hatch
toward the outside of the open area facing the core and studied the symbols on it trying to make some sense of it. A marine Sgt. stepped up beside Jack. "Looks Greek to me sir. Or should I say old Egyptian."

"Well it does not matter Sgt. I
doubt if they say press her and open says me. They must have a lock on the hatch of some kind. How do we open it?"

"Well Captain. These old
power packs look solid state to me. Why not just blast the hatch open?"

"Ok give it a try. You got something to do the job or do you need to send out for delivery?"

The marine Sgt. smiled. "Got just the stuff Captain.  Morgan, get your butt over here and blow this hatch. It looks like it has some kind of transport pad on the deck so just blow the sides and top."

The Sgt
. took Jacks elbow and started walking around the nearest corner. "This could be nasty if the magazine goes up Captain. Morgan will tell us when it is clear."

Jack’s eyes widened at the thought of the whole magazine exploding as the Sgt. Kept putting distance between them and the magazine’s hatch.

The Sgt. Chuckled. “Don’t worry Captain. Magazines are designed to explode without taking out the surrounding magazines. At least human magazines.”

A minute later a bright flash lit up the compartment with another wall of gas mixed with vaporized
metal streaking around the core and down the corridor. Slapping the Captain on the back. "Ok Captain let's see what happened.

A marine was already pu
shing out a pallet stacked full of boxes. Stopping just outside the hatch another marine opened one of the boxes and pulled out a power charge clip. "This what you were looking for Captain?"

"Ya sure
, it’s a good start. Now shove it on the conveyor platform and we will see if the transport system works."

The marine pushed the pallet onto the conveyor platform and it slid out and down to be replaced by another platfor
m a millisecond later sliding out from the deck.

A marine from the magazine hatch hit his comm. "Captain these pallets are attached to each other in a train. Is it possible the conveyor will take the train without disconnecting them first?"

"It is possible but I would hate to jam up the works if it did not work." Jack looked at the train of pallets as it came out of the magazine. "It looks like it should. But try it in the… No. wait. The other side of the core's conveyor, if it works, would dump them out headed for the shuttle instead of having to take them around the core. Let's see if the conveyor on the other side works and if so we will try putting in a train on this side and if it fails we at least have the conveyor facing the right direction. Sgt. keep stuffing them in one at a time for another few minutes."

It only took a couple of minutes to make sure the other conveyor was working  and a minute later the word came up from the deck below that not only did it wo
rk but the train followed the pallets already being pushed to the back of the shuttle around the core.

More marines joined
coming up in the elevator once they figured out what deck the symbols matched. Then jumped into blowing hatches and pushing trains to the two conveyors with a vengeance. Until someone noticed that if you pushed a little button with the shape of a train on it just inside the magazine's open hatch, the trains in that magazine started automatically and ran to the nearest conveyor and down to present itself to the shuttle for loading.

Things really speeded up
when Jack took a look at the panel and the symbols lined up on it. They suddenly started making sense once he knew what a few of them meant. Turning to the outside panel he smiled and stepped to the next hatch a marine was getting ready to blow and pushed two of the buttons at the same time and the hatch opened. He had just taken it for granted that they would be locked up and had not even tried. Jack started to get frustrated as they were wasting time trying to find the power packs for all the weapons they were packing out below and then Jack noticed that the Ape Pistol he was carrying had a symbol that matched the symbol on a box on a pallet that was going past. Grabbing the box off the pallet he opened it to find the power packs that matched his weapon. Comparing the different symbol on the assault gun one of the marines had, Jack found the matching power packs for it on a pallet and noticed the same symbol over a magazine hatch. 

They soon were opening magazines already knowing what was in them
using comm photos of the symbols on the weapons being loaded below. With both conveyors going full tilt, a steady stream of pallets were headed for the boats with trains lined up down most of the passageways on the magazine deck. Automatically taking turns to enter the 4 conveyor lifts into the deck below and running to the boats to be loaded. Marines started stacking weapons on top of the pallet trains to save time carrying them all the way across the deck since they were headed that way anyway. The cargo masters packing them in as tight as they could not bothering to tie them down even though the Spider ship pallet lock down system differed from the Republic pallet locks. They simply did not have the time anyway. As soon as a boat was stuffed the hatch was slammed closed and the shuttle or gig or stacked life boat was gone.

A good hour later s
haking his head Jack started looking up again as he stepped into the elevator to go down to check on loading. "Hell it will be a few minutes. I may as well see what is up there." Jack punched the button for the next deck up now that he could read some of the enemy symbols. As the elevator stopped he suddenly wondered if the Apes would be guarding this deck too. Feeling incredibly stupid, suddenly he looked desperately for a button to stop the elevator. Reaching to hit a button just to be hitting one the elevator doors opened and Jack brought his weapon up  but knew if there was even one Ape ready to fire, he would lose.

The doors opened on an empty space around the core.
Picking himself up from the deck after diving for cover when he realized he would be caught flat footed, he peeked out around the edge.  He blocked the doors from closing as he tried to catch his breath. Looking around he realized that this was one of the decks that was completely closed off and cold from him seeing anything on it except for the lit compartment directly ahead of him. Carefully Jack walked toward the compartment as he tried to see in it but could not see any shapes even though he could see the heat and light in it and some power lines going to rows of some kind of modules running down both sides.