Battleship Destroyer (99 page)

"I do not understand Captain Turner. You are not able to control your gravity coils accurately enough to maintain constant gravity? You are much more primitive than I thought."

"We are able to control our grav coils just fine under normal circumstances but we have recently upgraded our engines to be able do a lot more Gee's but have not had time to upgrade our coils yet."

"My apologies Captain Turner
for miss understanding. We will fabricated enough gravity coil beds in time for all our people. We will also connect the Assault boats to your ships power and life support for powering the gravity coil anchors. That will only take a few minutes to emplace. If the calculations we have made of the reinforcing you have done to anchor the guns to your hull is accurate and you can do over 1500 Gees our boats on your hull should be fine with the added power. Though they have never been tested above 300 gees."

"Captain, Boat lock Chief here. I have some alien engine
ers wanting to start remodeling the core elevators around the core cuts so we can unload the cargo from the new boats.  It looks good to me and would solve a lot of other problems. Especially if we are going to keep them. What do you want to do?"

"Do what you think is best
and get back to me. Just make sure they maintain the damn core hull strength for the engines. Out." Jack headed for the hatch. "Number One you have the Con. Call me if anything important happens. I will be back as soon as I can."

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Jack walked up to the edge of the tank hull hatch. The air curtain shimmered with the airless void on the other side. The Marine Commander stepped through the curtain pivoting around the edge as he bent his knees then straightened up onto the hull standing 90degrees to Jack still on the tank deck. Jack followed suit. Used to doing the grav change squat from airlocks in vacuum he was careful as he squatted down at the edge wondering if the air curtain field would interfere with the usual fluid motion. But except for a slight feeling of resistance, having to push through it as he rotated around the corner he managed not to embarrass himself.

Walking up to the battle damaged boat Jack actually was amazed that the pilot had done a nice job of landing on the hull without doing
too much damage to the small assault boat. Most of the boat's damage had been done by the battle and the few 30mm and 3inch turrets he could see sticking up from the ship's hull on short towers giving them a larger field of fire than if they were flat on the hull. Suddenly wondering why none of the smaller anti-personnel turrets were not in sight.

Making a note to check on that later
and add some, Jack entered the back of the life boat following the Commander. Black Ape weapons, armor and equipment lay attached to the inside deck and hull of the boat where they had been stripped off of bodies before the bodies had been dumped over the side into empty space just to get rid of them. They continued up the narrow 12 foot wide cargo bay toward the forward end of the boat stepping around large weapons and piles that had not yet been cleaned up. Reaching the forward bulkhead he stepped into a compartment as the last of the dead Apes where chucked out a hole blasted in the side.

The Commander stopped
at the forward end of the compartment full of consoles, (half without seats) and strange little alcoves with plugs perfect for holding trash cans and motioned toward the hatch onto the bridge. "Take a look Sir."

Jack stepped
through the hatch and stopped. The inside looked like it was covered with blood and slime and pieces of bodies everywhere. At the front in what looked like a Co-pilot's position on the Starboard side with simple controls similar to what he had seen in the other Assault boat sat a goop and gore covered headless body. Next to the copilots seat on the pilot's or Port side, missing any kind of seat stood a large fat cylinder that was split open along a thick jagged seam from top to bottom in the back. Appendages were hung on the sides at shoulder height with a cable going from the top front chest of the cylinder to the control panel. The bottom of the cylinder sat on some kind of thin platform that looked like gravity coils. Looking through the split in the back at the inside of the armored cylinder he could see it was full of gore and masses of vaguely familiar organs with some kind of jelly clinging to the insides. The same kind of jelly seemed to cover most of the compartment except at a couple of relatively clean seats that looked like they may have had Apes sitting at them when the canister at the front exploded. Another seat had something in a suit covered with the jelly gore. Looking closer at the boat's hull next to the canister Jack could see a 3 inch hole in the hull. Stepping closer he could see the 3 inch hole in one side of the upright canister directly across from the hole in the hull but no exit hole on the other side of the canister. "Ok looks like the damn thing was hit by a 3inch beam and just super boiled inside the canister until it exploded from the pressure." Jack studied it for a few seconds. "Could this be one of their God Officers?"

"That was what I thought Captain." The Commander said as he stepped into the compartment.

Jack turned around. "Well get the Doctor out here and get what we can from it before we dump the boat." Frowning as he turned back to the split canister. "You did not need me out here just to see this. What is up Commander?"

The Commander smile shown
through his helmet. "Sorry Captain but you need to decide what to do with this peace of shit." He tapped the gore covered suit seated next to him on the head with the tip of his finger trying not to get any of the gore covering the suit on him.

"What the?" Jack looked down at the seated suit and realized that under the covering of gore it was tied down to the acceleration chair with several straps
with its hands tied together in front of it. Stepping closer he peered into the visor someone had wiped half way clean. Jack took one look and stepped back. His eyes growing big as he shook his head. "Godstar that is impossible… How the hell." Jack stepped back up to the suit and peered inside the helmet again. The face that looked out at him was shouting as its eyes darted around. The vacuum keeping jack from hearing what he was saying since the suit codes had been changed as before they had left the Battleship.

Jack looked back up at the Commander. "How the hell did he get here? The last time I saw him he was running away from a boat in the dock on the enemy battleship."

"He says he was Captured
after wondering around the Battleship for a while." Shaking his head. "Sounds like he made a deal with the God Officer to help take over and command the Red Pepper. There were no slaves on this boat and the Apes do not know shit about manning a ship so I don't know who they were going to get to crew the Red Pepper. What do you want me to do with him? Leave him on the boat when we dump it?"

Jack wanted to agree with the Commander but shook his head no instead. "He is the only human that has ever seen a God Officer as well as half the ship
we never got to. We need to interrogate him to find out what he has seen and heard about and from our enemy." Frowning. "And what he told them." Stepping past the Commander on the way out. "Dump him in our deepest darkest cell and keep him isolated. Do whatever you have to, to make him talk. I want to know every step he made and saw and heard on that ship." Turning to glance at the canister.  "Especially about the God Officer." Looking around the compartment. "Just for the hell of it. Shove this boat inside the tank. Maybe there is something here the God Officer brought with him that we could use but it is going to take time to clean this mess up to find it." Taking another couple of steps. "Oh and let's keep this from the aliens for now and seal off the tank. We can use it to check some of what they tell us about the God officers for accuracy. They are the ones this God Officer would have used to crew the ship. And put guards on all the vital spaces. I don't want any aliens in the engine rooms ever or on the bridge unless I approve them." Without stopping as they walked to the open tank hatch. "You only have a half hour until we have to close up ship and go to maneuvering stations to get it loaded. Best get going Commander.”

The ship continued to drop. "Number One
, I guess we had better get ready now. If they were going to see and shoot at us they would have already." He said studying the plot tank. Looking up at the walls of the canyon as they approached them made him damn apprehensive after killing two ships and almost the fleet only hours before when he got side tracked for a few seconds. "You can turn the ship around and prepare for pulling out of this dive."

The Ensign saw his face as he
stared up at the canyon. The First officer started turning the ship around to present the ships tail to the cloud in preparation to pull out at the bottom.

"Captain, Jack
." The Ensign turned to face Jack. "I ran a simulation on when we dropped the first time into a canyon and even if you had started the turn sooner it would not have made a difference. We would have still lost the ships. From the logs the Captain of the Relish sent out on laser burst comm when he realized that his ship was not going to make it, showed that one of his engines was losing power even before he entered the canyon. The engine was tearing itself apart from damage it had received during the battle. Most likely he would have lost that engine before we got out of the turn and even then the wall that got the Mustard and we barely missed would have gotten both of them at the same time if he had not lost power. Even if you had started the turn as soon as you could have, the Mustard would still have hit the wall. The wall or actually mountain (at 100 times the speed of light, the ten thousand mile long mountain just looked like a thin wall), was just too tall."

"Ya we should have never gone down into the canyon in the first place." Jack was
staring down now at the approaching canyon.

"Now that is the most stupid
as nine thing I have ever heard. To start with your plan is what destroyed the Picket fleet in the first place and If you had not taken us down into that canyon the enemy squadron would have seen us coming a million miles away and slaughtered most of the fleet, if not all before we got close enough to even shoot at them. The only reason we won that battle is because you were able to sneak up on them and shove our guns and torpedoes' up their asses’." Looking around as the canyon walls started to pass up past them. "Now what do we do Captain Sir?"

Jack turned to look at the Ensign. A week smile came to his lips as he shook his head sideways. "We
ll, we follow the plan and quit trying to second think everything Ensign." Taping the ship wide comm a whistle sounded getting the crews attention. "Your attention please. This is Captain Turner. We are about to do some major high Gee maneuvers. All personnel, take your bunks and for those new to the ship if you have not been provided with gravity pads, ships personnel will provide you with straps and what padding we can find. You have 15 minutes to get laid and strapped down some place and we start the pull out."

Jack took a deep breath thinking. "Ah.
We are entering a deep winding valley with many towers and mountains randomly protruding above and around this section of the cloud that we can hide behind as we continue to slow down to enter the cloud. The problem is that we have an enemy ship that is above and to one side that we have to slide under without it seeing us. The fact that it will be dead in another few minutes when it crashes onto the cloud does not matter. If it sees us  it will call the ships we have closing in on the trap and decoy we have set for them at the hulks we just left behind and if they start chasing us soon enough, it will make it impossible to enter the cloud without them following us. To do that we have to stay in the canyon shadows in a forever changing canyon not well mapped and full of surprises for as long as possible. This ship has good powerful gravity coils but they were not designed and built to run at the Gees we will be pulling and the control circuits can be a bit slow varying the perceived Gee forces by a small percentage that can amount to as much as 10 to 20 Gees for brief periods." Taking a breath and trying to think what else needed said. "We will get through this and once we are out in front of this enemy fleet we are home free. Good luck. That is all."

Jack sat
back in the Command Chair staring down through the ship around the canyon with glances at the map on the Tactical tank. The Ensign walked over. "Jack, you need to pilot us through this. Your reflexes are faster and you can see things the First Officer cannot."

"Come on Ensign, I almost destroyed
the fleet in the last canyon."

"Actually sir.
" said the First Officer. "I tried the same run in the simulator 3 times while you were in the alien ship and got the fleet destroyed each time. You never made any big changes but you were able to make the right changes every time. You did miss the wall and the ships that suddenly pulled out of the wall. 27 officers have tried it in the simulator as well and no one has survived the run. I think I know what you did right but even then, I do not have something to pull it off." Standing up. "I will run the ship so you can concentrate on flying if you please sir." It was not a request.

Looking around Jack could
suddenly not see anything but the bridge with no ports and only screens. "No. I can't see. I am blind Ensign. The Commander has thousands of hours at the helm."