The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict (34 page)

Colin nodded and said, “And the fighter battle?”

Paul said, “The enemy fighters weren’t expecting us.”

Becky responded, “That’s odd. How would they have known that the
Sunflower
didn’t have any fighters? They should have been prepared to face 20 fighters.”

The question sounded rhetorical, so no one answered. Paul continued, “We had some initial difficulty. We had never practiced as a half squad and didn’t have any defined maneuvers. So, we started by diving straight down the middle of their formation and made them scatter.”

“We had 6 confirmed kills with the first pass. I ordered 6 fighters to swing in a full arc left and the remaining 4 to swing in a tight arc right. I wanted to catch them in a pincer. The maneuver works reasonably well in a squadron to squadron battle.”

It was hard for Colin to see Paul’s expression or hear a nuanced tone through the suit, but Colin was certain that Paul was feeling regret. Colin said, “Then what happened?”

Paul said, “The enemy reformed quicker than expected. All 14 fighters banked hard to the right and caught our sub-formation of 4 fighters in their infamous over / under swoop. There was nowhere for them to go. However, our guys were able to kill another 4 and bail out before being destroyed.”

“Finally, we finished our full arc and caught the bastards from behind. We toasted the remaining 10 and returned back to the ship. I believe that all 4 of the missing pilots are still alive. I am going to take the shuttle and retrieve them.”

Colin put his hand up and said, “Wait. The back half of the cruiser shouldn’t have stopped. That means that its propulsion system and more importantly power generator is still intact.”

He paused for a breath and said, “Paul, get your marines suited up in your armor. We are going to board the enemy ship.” He looked at Becky and said, “Becky, disconnect one of the shuttles for Paul’s team.”

Finally, he pointed to the three of the crew members that had been denied spots in fighters and said, “You three, grab the shuttle and go get the missing pilots.”

Paul enlisted the help of 3 others. Together they grabbed his suit, drug it halfway across the hangar, and manhandled it into the large rear door of the shuttle. The other 4 marines followed him, each dragging his respective suit. When all 5 MPS suits were loaded onto the shuttle, Paul and the other marines climbed in and sealed the rear door.

Colin and John entered the shuttle through the side door and sealed it. Colin had initially wanted to take Becky with him, but he realized that John was the only engineer that was also qualified to fly a shuttle. John verified that the transport was sealed and activated the air pressurization system. He gently lifted the shuttle off of the deck and flew it out of the hangar bay.

In 14 seconds the shuttle was filled with breathable air. John gave a ‘thumbs up’ signal to Paul and Paul motioned for the other marines to begin changing. Paul took off his helmet, gloves, and boots and began the now much quicker process of assembling the suit onto his body.

They had to change in an oxygenated environment due to a minor design flaw in the MPS suit. The MPS suit had its own gloves, boots, and helmet, so Paul had to remove those from his smart suit before he could put on the armor. They could have changed in the john, but Colin decided it would be faster to do it in the shuttle while they were in-route to the ship.

Colin performed a full scan as they were approaching the back end of the cruiser. Colin announced, “There is a section with breathable air. Parts of the rear section are still shielded. The power generator is on.”

John replied, “Excellent news.”

John docked with the damaged front section of the enemy cruiser. Although that sounds impressive, he basically just landed the shuttle on the flattest surface left that was located beside the exposed area. He activated the electromagnetic clamps to keep the shuttle attached to the cruiser.

Paul lowered the rear hatch and the 5 marines exited the shuttle. Paul insisted that Colin and John remain behind in the sealed shuttle until they receive a signal that it is safe. The marines walked a few paces along the outside of the hull and jumped into the open section of the ship.

Fortunately, the Hiriculan cruiser was laid out roughly like an Alliance cruiser. Therefore, they were quickly able to find the main corridor and walk toward engineering. They walked the ½ remaining length of the corridor and found that the entryway to engineering was blocked by a large steel barricade and a force field.

Unlike the corresponding system on the
Sunflower
, the emergency pressurization system had functioned properly and sealed the entryway to engineering. Paul said, “Options. Do we try to break through or find a way around?”

“I don’t think it matters” one of the marines responded. “The ship is pressurized on the other side. Eventually we are going to have to break through somewhere.”

Paul took his giant sword and swung at the force field. It easily sliced through the force field, but the door was too far for him to get a solid hit it. The sword banged harmlessly off of the door. The field returned the moment he finished the stroke. Paul looked up and located the six field actuators. They were buried deep inside the top of the ceiling.

They couldn’t damage the field actuators by hitting the ceiling with their swords and it would be nearly impossible to try to dig them out. Further, it looked like it would take a long time to break the door by banging on it with a sword.

One of marines said, “Now would be a great time to have a beam weapon.”

Paul looked at Jake, his weapons expert and asked, “Do guns fire in space?”

Jake said, “Yes.”

Paul remained silent and kept staring at him, so Jake continued, “You really mean do guns fire without air, or specifically without oxygen to ignite the blast. The answer is yes. There is enough oxygen sealed inside the bullet casing to ignite the charge and fire the bullet.”

Paul turned away, but Jake kept going. Paul thought, apparently I either get a one word answer or a dissertation. Jake continued, “What you need to worry about is the gun jamming due to the extreme temperature change from inside the shuttle to now.”

Paul detached his Dillion M134D Gatling gun from his waist and looked at it. It would either fire or it wouldn’t he supposed. Paul said, “Stand back” and aimed the gun directly at one of the six shield deflectors.

He thought for a moment and said, “If this works, we could get a rush of air. Everyone activate the electromagnets in your boots.”

Once secured to the floor, Paul fired a quarter clip, or 750 rounds, at the first force field activator. The shot worked; the force field dimmed visibly in that section. Paul repeated, repeated, repeated again, reloaded, repeated, and repeated a final time.

Paul took a step forward and put his hand out. He could now touch the barrier door. He felt all around the door. He said, “The force field is down, but the barrier door is still intact. Suggestions?”

The marines discussed the problem for a couple of minutes. However, their next course of action became readily apparent. They reached the only logical conclusion that any set of marines boarding an alien spaceship in another galaxy would reach.

Jake summarized, “Let’s blow it up!”

Paul said, “How much composition 4 do we need?” Paul loved to use the full name of the explosive. He thought it sounded dignified.

Jake replied, “How much do we have?”

Each marine reached into a pocket in his armor and produced a standard M112 bar of c4 explosive. The standard bar is 2” by 1.5” and weighs 1.25 pounds (.5 kg). Jake made a quick count and said, “I figure 6 and a 1/4 pounds should do it.”

Paul decided to double check with Colin first. He contacted and him and said, “We’re stuck. There is a barrier door blocking our way. We are going to try to blow it out of its slot. Do you have any suggestions?”

Colin replied, “Yes. The barrier door is designed to maintain atmosphere. It really isn’t designed as an anti-personnel door. As a result, you should be able to blow it up without too much difficulty. However, I would recommend denting the door and stuffing the c4 deep in the crevices.”

Paul said “Thanks” and broke connection. He looked at Jake, who had been listening to the brief conversation.

Jake said, “The c4 will explode in outer space because the reaction is chemical. However, the initial explosion needs to travel through a medium for it to be fully effective. That is why Colin suggested trying to expose the seams of the door.”

The marines again huddled and discussed the possible ways to dent the barrier door. Again, the discussion quickly ended with one potential solution.

Paul said, “I guess I will go first.” Paul backed up about 10 meters (11 yards). Then he took a running start and banged full force into the door. Everyone else followed. It took 15 hits to dent the door enough to widen the seams.

Jake carefully spread the 5 bars of c4 into the seams and wired the detonating caps. He then motioned for everyone to back completely out of the corridor and away from the potential blast zone.

The caution was warranted because in reality there was no chance for the marines to dodge or even move before the explosion would hit them. The exploding gas moves at a rate of 8,050 meters per second (26,400 feet/sec).

This means the explosion will travel down the length of the 38 meter corridor in 5 milliseconds (or five one-thousands of a second). By comparison, the blink of an eye takes 300 milliseconds. For all intents and purposes, the explosion will be instantaneous.

Jake completed wiring the detonator. Paul motioned to everyone to verify that they were magnetically sealed to the hull. Paul gave the ‘all clear’ signal and Jake pressed the button. Paul felt the massive boom through his feet. He could have sworn that he heard it as well.

Paul looked to his right and watched as the entire door and a significant portion of the door frame, a part of the corridor, and possibly a dead Hiriculan drifted away into space. Paul winced because the trajectory was very near the
Sunflower
. Fortunately, it missed.

Jake said, “I guess we only needed 4 bars.”

The marines walked back down the main corridor and entered engineering. They searched the entire area and verified that the three remaining Hiriculans inside were lifeless. It was unclear whether they died from exposure or if the blast killed them. Either way, they were dead.

The large pressure differential between the two sides of the door had caused the blast to be nearly one-directional. As a result, the engineering station was largely intact. Paul signaled the shuttle and told Colin and John it was now safe to join them.

Colin and John followed the marines into the engineering section. Colin rushed over to one of the engineering work stations and checked the power generator. He had to use his communication pad to translate the words, but the layout of the information was identical to the Alliance system. Colin was able to determine that the power generator was in perfect operating condition.

They returned to the
Sunflower
and Colin verified that the other 4 pilots had been rescued. He congratulated everyone on their performance thus far and informed them of his plan to save the ship. It would require performing hours of spacewalks and involve major repairs traditionally reserved only for inside a space dock.

Colin organized the crew into two main teams. The first would rip the old power generator out of the
Sunflower
and install the new power generator from the Hiriculan cruiser and the second would repair the hull.

It was time to get to work. They had a ship to rebuild – again.

………………..

Lexxi was still pretending to tap out letters when Solear said, “It is a shame there is no other way we can communicate with the humans or at least tell how many survived.”

Lexxi stopped beating (which made everyone else happy) and said, “Maybe there is a way.” She queried her work station and was unable to get the desired information. She tried the search a second time and failed again. She became frustrated at the result and banged out an inappropriate word with her giant headphones.

Putat walked over and asked if he could help. Lexxi replied, “In order to fire a missile, someone has to press the missile interlock switch. If we could scan the system, we might be able to see how many unique palm prints there were. Unfortunately, the system is being a major buzzkill. It says that there was only one palm print on all 9 missile launchers.”

Putat said, “Lexxi, your query didn’t work because you didn’t account for the fact that the humans are wearing gloves.”

Lexxi added the variable and redid her query. This time she was able to assemble the required information. Lexxi said, “Captain, during the battle, there were 18 unique palm prints that touched the missile interlock switch.”

Solear said, “Great work Lexxi. So, we started with 30 humans. We saw 18 prints and we know that 10 were in the fighters. That means 28 humans survived.”

Clowy stood and looked around the room for everyone’s attention. It was customary for the first officer to give an official accounting of the battle. Clowy had spent the last 45 minutes pouring over all of the sensor data, and now with Lexxi’s information she was certain that she had the correct counts.

Once she had everyone’s attention, she announced, “The
Sunflower
has officially been credited with three more kills. Two crewmembers died in the battle.”

She paused for a moment, then continued, “We launched 10 fighters and they bravely battled 20 opposing fighters. All enemy fighters were destroyed. Four fighters were heavily damaged and will probably be declared a complete loss. However, all 10 pilots returned.”

Solear let the silence linger in the room for another minute in honor of the two humans that had died. He then whispered, “Great hunting everyone.”