Scrapyard Ship (30 page)

Perkins looked over his shoulder toward Jason. “Shields substantially down, sir, 40%.”

“Gunny, can Lilly preconfigure the targeting for both the third and fourth shifts ahead of time?”

“Already ahead of you, Cap, but their ships are changing positions. They’ve figured out what we’re doing. But Lilly’s tracking them, we’re good.”

“Helm, make the third shift,” Jason commanded again. The next volley of missiles were immediately deployed, again with four batches. “And now make the fourth shift, Helm. Gunny, same thing. Deploy your missiles.”

Jason noticed Perkins was getting fidgety in his seat. “Shields down to twenty percent, Captain. And forward shields could go down any time.”

“Helm, put us back inside the Dreadnaught. Phase-shift us out of here.”

“Power reserves are gone, we can’t shift for at least five more minutes, sir.”

“Shields will be down in two,” Perkins barked back.

The last of the remaining yellow missile icons disappeared. All sixty vessels were disabled from the third shift and another seventy from the fourth. The Craing fleet had been nearly decimated.

“Status report, Gunny?”

“Only five warships remain from the original shift,” replied Orion. “They are quickly moving to intercept.”

Perkins was fidgeting again. “Shields are gone, sir. All power reserves are depleted. Weapons are down too, no power reserves; we’re switching to backup power but that’s barely enough to keep our environmental systems going.”

“What about the fighters?”

“Maybe, but they’re all requesting help from us. The Craing were waiting for them. We can shift them to the approaching vessels, but they’ll encounter the same resistance.”

Watching the display, Jason saw the five warships move into position. The Lilly was dead in space. They couldn’t phase-shift away, and their weapons were inactive.

“They’re engaging, sir, concentrated plasma fire at our drives,” the XO said. Jason had no more rabbits to pull out of his hat. He wished he’d had more time with Mollie. The admiral retook his seat. He too was aware of what must be done.

“Ricket, we need to self-destruct The Lilly. Prepare for—”

“Captain!” Perkins was up on his feet. “One of the Craing warships just disintegrated.”

The bridge crew looked back up towards the display.

“Status—anyone!”

Orion rechecked her console. Her confusion turned to astonishment and then she looked up. “Captain, The Surprise, The Trickster, The Last Chance, and The Gordita just cleared the solar system and are engaging the Craing warships. Seems they caught them by surprise.” Plasma blasts erupted from both sides.

“Captain, our rail guns just came back on line,” Orion reported. “Request permission to use PQR ordinances on the Craing vessels.”

Jason looked over to Orion with the hint of a smile. “The same ones that obliterated that solid granite ridge?”

“The very same, sir.”

“Permission granted, Gunny.”

To be continued…

Thank you for reading Scrapyard Ship. If you enjoyed this book and would like to see the series continue, please leave a review on Amazon.com. To be notified of the soon to be released next Scrapyard Ship book (Hab 12), contact [email protected]
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Acknowledgments

First of all, I'd like to thank my wife, Kim, for providing the loving and supportive
space
for me to write this book. There were plenty of other things that I could have—and probably should have—been working on. Both my mother (Lura Lee Genz) and sister (Lura Fischer) were instrumental in this book being published. In fact, the seeds of an idea for this book came about while having lunch with my sister, Lura, and it was her support and motivation that helped to get the ball rolling for me. Thank you to my amazing editors, Lura Lee Genz and Rachel Weaver—the many hours invested are so appreciated. I'd also like to thank Eric Sundius for his expert technical information regarding the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gratitude goes out to several best selling authors who were giving of their time and advice, including H. Paul Honsinger and B. V. Larson—both continue to be an inspiration to me. Thank you, Drusilla Tieben; your support has meant a lot to me. I'd also like to thank the many others who supported, contributed, and reviewed this book, including: James Fischer, Sue Parr, Patti and Kirt Strawn, and David Sundius.