Battleship Destroyer (109 page)

"Sensor missiles recording hits on the enemy Captain.
Looks like about 10 percent are hitting. The cloud and tunnel seems to be bending the beams slightly in random directions. Probably from uncharted masses we have not had time to map and the high amperage electric fields in the wall of the tunnel. Mapping them now sir."

"Still 10% is damn good. How long until the big guns are charged?"

"A hundred and thirty seconds Captain."

Jack studied the sensor missile screen. The sensor missile was actually a torpedo but for stealth purposes and the fact it did not need a warhead was made small enough to fit in the missile magazine so it was called a missile to keep tired and busy crews from being confused when loading. Unlike missiles
, it could shut down or move when needed while ferreting out and reporting on the enemy. Though once it started transmitting at long range through the cloud, it was easy to detect. Which was why the sensor operator had dropped a dozen as soon as they had exited the tunnel before they even had a chance to fire at the enemy. The one active sensor was now transmitting in burst laser mode with the Red Pepper still in sight making it almost impossible for the Spiders to pick them up. Though the interference from the cloud was making reception less than perfect.

Jack suddenly felt guilty again for being
too busy piloting the ship to make sure the crew had carried out the plan or make the right decisions. One that could have taken out at least another Spider ship. He was starting to wonder how many more things he screwed up while he had his head stuffed in the cockpit trying not to run into things instead of Commanding. The slowly raising hit percentage scored on the Spider Battle cruiser was satisfying to Jack making him smile until he thought again of the opportunity he had lost from not doing the job he was getting paid for and entrusted with while playing battleship pilot.

"Enemy broadside in 15 second
s Captain." The Tactical officer turned to Jack.

"Very well. Weapons, cease fire please." Jack went back to studying the Spider ship that they had targeted.

"Captain." The First Officer turned to Jack. "Should we start accelerating?"

Jack realized that if he was still in the pilot's seat he probably would have done just that.
"Ah, no Number One. We will let the enemy do that for us."

The First Officer looked at Jack as his mouth dropped open and several of the other officers turned to look.

"Enemy salvo in 5, 4, 3, 2." Seven enemy big gun beams streaked across the Red Peppers bow in a tight string piercing the tunnel about a thousand miles ahead of the ship.

The First Officer turned to look at the main screen and the string of holes punched in the sides of the tunnel ahead of the ship. "Damn Captain that would have been close."

Jack just smiled. "Weapons you can fire when ready."

The 16(8
) inch guns started firing before Jack had finished the word fire. Jack watched as the percentage of shells hitting the ship increased toward 20% as something separated from the target ship. It started to turn around to place its shield decks between them and the weathering fire from the Red Pepper. Picking protection over slowing to keep from hitting the cloud wall. "Weapons, task guns target Charley."

"Changing targets Captain." The guns did not
seem to even stop firing as the beam streaks started hitting the other ship.

A half a minute later the Tactical officer said. "Enemy broadside in 15 seconds Captain." Five seconds later he said. "Enemy broadside in 10 seconds
Captain." As the guns kept firing. Then. "5, 4,"

"Number One 400 Gees now."

The ship sprang up the tunnel while one side of the ship continued to fire and 6 tightly clustered beams bracketed the tunnel where the Red Pepper had been sitting only a second before. "Engines stop please. Reacquire center line on target."

"Captain, weapons, God gun ready to fire in 20 seconds."

Jack smiled. "Good. It is about time." Then he noticed the second ship turning its shield decks around to face them.  "I don't believe this." Shaking his head. "Weapons as soon as you are charged, no. Fire Godguns now."

"What? Ah yes sir.
Targeted now." Slapping at his comm pad. "Crews firing gun premature. Everyone to firing positions. NOW." The Weapons Officer tapped the side of his console with his fingers as he stared at it.

Jack watched the spider ship slowly turn as
the 16(8) inch beams continued to streak around and into the sides of the weapons section with the number of hits now at 21%.

Finally an icon on the Weapons Officers board turned green and he slapped the firing key and one of the guns fired jerking the ship around followed a second later as he slapped another key and a second beam left as the gun recoiled back along the side of the ship jerking it around again in the opposite direction. A couple seconds later he fired the last two guns at the same time as their icons turned green.

Jack watched the first beam miss the ship as well as the second then the last 2 beams hit dead center onto the angled shield deck
with a huge eye hurting, blinding flash. He could not see any signs of the beams penetrating the 3 shield decks or doing any damage for that matter as the screen came back to normal vision. But what the hell was the explosion. Then he noticed something strange about the shield deck it was shiny, reflecting the clouds and the stars above across its service as 16(8) inch beams continued to streak into the solid armored deck creating a rapidly growing number of black blotches across its face. Counting to 10 as he shook his head closing his eyes. "Number One, get us out of here. Safe the main guns Weapons. Damage report Exec."

"The Crystal hull is registering 3,000 degrees on the outside
surface, the main hull is safe well below a thousand. Gun barrel tubes are well below limits even though the crystal linings on most are registering well above 4,000 degrees but under the stated max of six thousand. Except for the inside of the ship being a little hot though still within limits, I am registering no apparent ship board damage. No reported casualties either Captain." The Executive Officer that was also responsible for damage control smiled.

Jack sat with his eyes closed
taking a deep breath and thought to himself. "We could have gotten at least two if not all three of them if I had not screwed up taking over the helm. As it was, I almost cost the ship going back down this rathole to soon with my mind still concentrating on piloting and not Command. Damn it."

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

The Red Pepper came out of the tunnel as target Alpha hit the cloud broadside. Jack could not tell if the big ship was just drifting or was trying to turn its armored decks toward the cloud to save themselves. Hitting broadside the Spider ship started to break up in a fiery ball. Each armored deck going their separate ways, corkscrewing, or flopping, or tumbling around the cloud on their own trajectory as the weapons and personnel section finished destroying itself to cheers across the bridge.

"Enough! We still have 2 ships chasing our hens."
Jack ordered the course change according to the original plan as he watched the enemy Battle cruiser, target Bravo, slide into the cloud. Shield deck first. The sensor missile showing the 6,000 degree shockwave being pushed out around the ship as it slowed under control. With any luck it would be back out and chasing the transports in minutes. The other ship was not wasting time as it had turned back around to resume decelerating as soon as it had seen the Republic ship continue down the tunnel with its point defense guns taking out rocks along the way giving away their location. Target Charley was now rapidly dropping down the hole the transport squadron had disappeared down and was tracking their wake and fusion power plants that were still in range. It was easy to see as close as the squadron was that one Republic transport ship was lagging behind the others. The Spider was out for blood.

"Damn it is my fault they are still alive." Shaking his head
as he tapped the screens in front of him. "Number One, make 400 Gees. We have to get over this damn mountain now. If Bravo survived it will have the tunnel covered even while inside the cloud." Jack was hoping they would think it was an old tunnel made for just such an attack. It was a shame they did not have enough time to put enough distance between them and the mountain again to punch another tunnel so that left jumping over the top. "Number One, make that 450Gees please. With any luck they would be able to follow Target Bravo down the hole after it came out of the cloud, shoot them up the ass and then catch up to Charley before he caught up to the transports.  "We can deal with them each individually with no problem since they went to all this trouble to separate."

Taking a deep breath Jack frowned. "Ok now what the hell was that explosion on Charley's shield deck?"  Bringing up the feeds from half the scattered recon missiles he studied the beams hitting the shield deck and the explosion. Slowing the feeds down to millionths of a seconds he
finally saw what he was looking for. The two beams touched just before they hit the shield deck. "Damn! Basic laser dynamics and I forgot simple facts. I should have flunked that course both times even if I did have to take it again on the Red Dwarf.(Being one of the first pretests after arriving on his new ship, he had been so confident of passing the basic course that he had not bothered to study and wound up only getting an 88 on it. Then cursed for 2 months for having to do the book work.)

The out of phase beams had interfered with
each other's cohesion releasing all the energy they both contained in the huge explosion. If the beams had been in perfect Phase they would have combined more than doubling their power into one beam. Jack suddenly wondered how many decks a beam powered by all 4 God Gun beams phased together would go.  But perfect phasing was very hard to achieve with even 2 beams let alone all 4. No he was better off using the 4 out of phase beams to enhance their effects inside the Spider ship's shield decks. Hell, it just may be possible to blast the decks apart and off the main weapons section leaving the 16(8)'s to finish the ship off. Or if they could catch them with their pants pulled down again to hit them at long range with the God guns crossed beams and simply vaporize the damn weapons section in one salvo.

Weapons, since crossing 2 beams makes such a big flash.
Let's do that with all 4 on our next attack. See what you can do to target them to meet where we want them too. Oh and make sure they are all a long ways out of phase with each other." Jack got up from the command chair and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. "I will take it from here Number One. You run the ship."

Jack took the helm and settling into the seat and the controls
out of habit pushing back the warnings flashing through his mind about it being another big mistake but he was pissed at both himself and the Spider Squadron. Running system checks and getting the feel for the ship as he started doing gentle maneuvers for a few seconds as they climbed up the side of the mountain towered the ridge separating them from the enemy. "Tactical, both the enemy squadron and fleet is on the other side of this mountain of clouds hiding us from them, right?"

"Yes Captain. The Spider fleet is 7 hours from reaching the entry point."

"Good, thank you." Jack slid the throttles up until the ship was doing well over a thousand Gee's. Fifteen minutes later Jack had the ship turned ass up as he decelerated arching them across the top of the ridge line still at over a thousand Gee's. They zipped over the top and started down the other side and Jack pulled the throttles back to only 400 Gees. "Navigation how long for us to reach the entry point?"

"At 400Gees sir
, it will take 28 minutes sir."

"Tactical,
tell me as soon as you find Bravo. Passive only." Jack slipped between banks of clouds in a cut down the side of the mountain.

"Go
t Bravo now Captain. Just started receiving laser comm from an out laying recon missile in the chain relaying tactical of Bravo at the entry to the tunnel we bored through the cloud. Bravo is sitting with its shield to the tunnel firing a shot down it every 15 seconds. Looks like it is enlarging the tunnel but that does not make any sense sir."

"Ok. Definitely
puzzling. How long until we are within range with the God Guns?" Jack reached over tapping the navigation controls and the collision alarms went off. Jack jerked the ship around the finger that appeared ahead of them. Trying again, he started drifting toward the side for several seconds before catching his mistake.

The Ensign walked up beside Jack and bent d
own to whisper in his ear. "You are the Captain Jack. Act like it instead of a spoiled kid before I have to slap some sense into you."

"We will be at a range of 60 light seconds in 21 minutes Captain.
" Said the Tactical Officer.

Jack frowned over at the Ensign shaking his head
. "How dare you…" He whispered back stating to get mad until he had to pull up again over a rock that came out of the mountain side that he almost missed while glancing at the Ensign. "Shit! Dam, Ok already and smiled sheepishly. Pulling up a few thousand feet he turned to the navigator/copilot. "Helms yours for a few seconds. Number One take the helm please and then drop us back down as close as you can get." As he climbed out and waited for the First Officer to take the helm then sitting in the Command chair again. Jack wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.