Battleship Destroyer (113 page)

"We have finished installing generators for all the weapons but have not been able to do any additional tests Captain. We have checked and tuned everything we could think of with a
ll 23 variances on the control programing we have come up with to try once we are able to us power."

"Ok. I though you said you were running power up to the shield coils. Power them up with your new generator."

"My apologies Captain, we must wait for the next time we can shut the plasma system down. We did not have time the short time we were stopped in the clear before the attack commenced."

"My fault Pan, I ordered the attack as soon as it was possible.
Though I could have waited a few minutes if you had told me of the need.” Taking a deep breath and slapping Pan on her back. “Relax, we will have plenty of time once we take out the Spider Battle cruiser. With what you have accomplished already we should be able to slag the ship in only a few minutes after catching it by surprise with its guns aimed forward around the shield."

Pans whole body turned sad as her face became hard as a rock. "Yes, we will morn our
family comrades held aboard the God ship Excrementine at their passing. Many of our families have been split up to crew that ship. The God Captain takes considerable pleasure in killing his crewmen for sport and then buying new crew from fat crewed ships. Our family was just his last acquisition. My children amongst them."

Jack suddenly
stared at Pan as his mouth opened.  "Godstar, I am so sorry Pan. I did not know."

Pan bowed. "There was no way you could know and we would rather their deaths come from us than at the torturing hands of that sadistic God
monster. They would have died anyway in a few years." Do not pain at their deaths. We shall see them again on your human’s Godstar."

Jack did not know what to say to that so he said nothing as they watched the time tick by as they waited.
Painfully slow as they waited. Jack forcing himself to sit relaxed even though he felt anything but.

"Captain, plot, 5
minutes from clear area attack point."

"Captain! Target Charley has changed
course. They are cutting through a narrow section of cloud to a clear area that will intercept the squadron 5 minutes after they clear the cloud. Trying to calculate how long it will take them to get through the cloud now sir."  Tactical Officer was beside himself trying to hurry to give his Captain what he needed.

Jack studied the screen. "Damn, we are trapped in this damn tunnel for another 5 minutes." His fingers started running over the virtual board in front of him as he ran scenarios trying to attack the Spider Battle
cruiser before it reached the squadron.

Jack's fingers stopped as he
lowered his hands to the arm of his chair. Grimacing he took a deep breath shaking his head no.  "Weapons, we will be firing the Godguns at extreme range inside the cloud when we transition into the clear area. Maybe we can get its attention away from the squadron. You should have time afterwards to recharge before we reach the target for the main attack.  Use the 16(8)s for range shots and cloud atmosphere mapping to increase the probability of the Godguns hitting the target. Try to get it above 80% if you can but I can only give you 30 seconds to fire and then we have to start tunneling again."

Jack studied his screens again and then. "Number One. You are going to have to
whip this ship around as soon as the Godguns fire and give us as much velocity as you can then whip us back around and start tunneling before we hit the cloud." Taking another deep breath. "Weapons, as soon as you fire the Godguns, you will have to start charging them with whatever power not needed elsewhere. We will fire at the Spider again as soon as they get recharged from inside the tunnel. We should be a lot closer by then and hopefully you will be able to hit it. All you have to do is slow it down so we can get to it before it reaches the transports. Fact is cross the beams now. The likely hood of the beams hitting the ship let alone the ship's core is slim and the beam explosion even if it misses just may impress the ass hole God Captain."

The Red Pepper streaked out into the cleared area with the First Officer having to use considerable thrust to stop them from hitting the other side of the cloud before he could turn the ship
's ass to fire the God Gun at the Spider. Though the weapons Officer only needing one gun shot at a time to map the cloud he started shooting the 16(8)s as soon as they were out of the cloud and was very happy when he finally hit the key to fire the Godguns in a single salvo. The Red Pepper was well into its new tunnel before the ships sensors told them that they had come close to hitting the Spider Battlecruiser by the shockwave bouncing off the enemies hull a mere millionth of a second after the crossed beam explosion. From what they could tell they had come damn close to the front shield deck of the Spider. Close enough to clean it off nice and polish it up with a good shine.

"Too bad we did not come that close to the back side.
The battle could have been over." Tactical said to the Weapons Officer. "You will have to put your glasses on next time."

The Weapons Officer gave the Tactical Officer the finger with a smile.

"Nine minutes to intercept enemy Battle cruiser." The Plot Officer said.

"Three
minutes until the enemy Spider Battle cruiser is within range of the squadron Captain." Came a dejected Tactical Officer. "They did not take the bait Captain.  Weapons, you should have hit them damn it."

"Enough gentlemen. Weapons did as best as he could. A lot better than I had hopped."

"They definitely know we are here now Captain." The sensor Officer spoke up. "We are being scanned big time. The majority of their sensors in fact sir."

"Well then let's send out a full spread of active decoys and see what they think of that."

"Captain, do you want to set out passive decoys, chaff shields and activate Electronic Countermeasures.?"

"No. if they can't see us coming they can't be
scared of us. Makes it a lot harder for them to ignore us. I want them to be scared of us. I am hoping they will think our active decoys are really ships."

Jack watched
the Spider ship close with the squadron trying to think of what else they could do to stop or slow him up long enough to reach him.

"God Gun recharged Captain. Ready to fire." The Weapons Officer said.

"Enemy Spider has his shield deck toward us Captain. Our fire will be ineffectual unless we can get around the shield."

"Hold your fire Weapons. As long as he thinks we
can fire at him he should maintain this aspect keeping him from powering toward the squadron."

"Ah, Captain. The Spider is still accelerating toward the squadron."

"Plot that is impossible. It has its shield deck pointed at us."

"Sorry Cap
tain but my sensors tell me it is still accelerating and will be within gun range of the squadron in another minute."

"Captain, Science." Jack turned around to look at the Ensign. "I am reading definite signs of the black hole engines running but they are turned on their pylons thrusting the B
attle cruiser to the side while it maintains the shield deck towards us."

"Captain, Tactical, Spider firing God
guns at the squadron at long range through the cloud separating them."

"Squadron passing our exit point now. The
enemy Spider will be passing it in another two minutes after rounding the corner. The Squadron will be caught in this long clear strait section for a full minute before we can exit and engage them sir. This section of cloud is simply too dense to fire through even at this range."

Jack watched the enemy Battle
cruiser pass in front of them as it come around the corner with its shield facing them. Its Godguns flashed at the hapless transports as it continued down the clear area away from them with its shield still pointed at them.

"Hit on all three of the
transports. One is tumbling."

"Thirty second
s to entering the clear Captain."

"Engineering, I want all ships power going to the stern Shields and Guns
. Number one increase the power, I want a big enough tunnel to turn the ship and our weapons toward the enemy before we exit into the clear. Pan, if you can make those damn generators work now is the time. We are going to have to punch our way through the Spider ship Excrementine Shield decks to kill it and that means a lot of fast shots from your Godguns and not one every 3 minutes. We need your generators."

"Captain, Spider has extended its Godguns out around the shield decks."

"Ok Weapons, we are going to have about 5 seconds of firing time before they shove four beams up our assess. Make them count. Godguns cross beam inside the shield decks. All other guns and missiles aim for the Godguns. Good luck everyone." If he could have, Jack would have run and hid but there was no place to run or hide so he sat starring at the deadly Godguns suddenly tracking them through the cloud.

The end of the tunnel was cut out and the ship turned to face its enemy as they slid out into the clear. "Fire!" Jack said
trying to keep his voice from breaking or squeaking or screaming incoherently.

Every gun
smaller than the Godguns started sending streaks toward the enemy guns and sensors sticking out around the shield decks. A full 4 seconds later the Weapons officer tapped the firing key on his console and the Godguns sent their 4 beams into the center of the enemy's shield only 30 yards from each other where they intercepted deep inside the decks. The center of the deck exploded out in a large cone away from the deck expanding out in front of the Spider ship as well as sending a ring of debris out the sides of the sandwiched decks just as the Spider ship Excrementine fired its own Godguns.

The Spider's Godgun beams bracketed the Red Pepper down the four sides of the hull taking out the ends of
several cooling/landing fins as they passed.

Jack just sat there in disbelief at still being alive as he checked the damage control board over his shoulder
to make sure it was not just the bridge.

"Captain, the Godguns are already recharged. I think. Should I try firing them?
It is way too soon."

Jack turned around and looked at his own weapons screen as his mouth dropped open
at the sight of the charge bars at full capacity. He swallowed and then. "Hell yes! Fire already."

The
Godguns fired and another enemy shield deck disappeared.

Suddenly Jack noticed that the 16(8)s were firing every second while the 5(3) were literally sending machinegun streaks into anything that stuck out beyond the shield deck which was not much as Jack took a close look.  He could see the four Godguns sticking out around the shield
but they looked strange as their muzzles were slowly being whittled away as peace's started flying out of the insides of the barrel tubes themselves.

The Red Peppers Godguns fired again taking out another armored deck leaving a large 500 foot donut hole down the center of the shields. Once the debris cloud expanded away Jack could see what looked like the top of a ship
's deck with shuttles and fighters and…

T
he Godguns flashed again as Jack watch in slow motion as the beams that seemed to be spread a lot farther apart than before, disappeared down into the deck and suddenly an explosion reared back up through the donut hole flinging shuttles and fighters and whole sections of decks up through the armored shield toward him.

A second later a large piece of ship was sent tumbling out
to one side of the shield decks with engines attached to the stern and pieces of guns hanging out from slivers of hull sticking up forward from what was left of the ship.

Every gun smaller than the Godguns concentrated on what was left of the  Godguns and the still working engines hanging out away from the main hull. Most of the beams seamed  to hit the engines or gun remnants though a few missed as the targets passed in front of what was left of the hull to blow
large holes into the ship behind them.

Jack slapped at the big red cut off button on the
arm of his chair and missed it. Having to look at it to hit it on his second attempt just as the Godguns finished recharging with the gunners sights in the middle of the tumbling wreckage.

Space was suddenly black again with a few fires around the inside of the huge donut and on the front of what remained of the Battleship. Jack took a deep breath and let it out. Took another and tapped his comm. "Pan, you want to call your kin and see if they want to surrender. I think we destroyed the ship all the way back to just above the slave decks. Hopefully we destroyed all the Ape decks as well."

It took a few minutes before Pan came back as Jack watched the wreckage for any signs of hostility. "Captain Turner. Except for a few guard Apes which they have taken care of they wish to surrender to your honorable sir. They have two assault shuttles that they have finished repairs. They can use them to bring the 1200 personnel that are left alive to speed things up before the fleet gets here."

"No Pan, we will send our shuttles over with a conting
ent of marines and Red Apes to check things out but you are welcome to go along to organize the transfer of personnel and anything else they need. We still have a few empty tanks left and at the rate your people are repairing the upper decks we should have plenty of room. Though the new shuttles will be helpful when we do start transferring personnel." Jack looked around the bridge and then at the screen with the squadron of transports not far away. "As soon as the shuttles are away we need to go and check on the squadron’s damaged transports. Give you some time to make arrangements." Taking a deep breath and stretching in his suit. “No sense in keeping these buttoned up for the moment. Exec, sound condition 3 and get the crew fed. We are looking at hours before the rest of their fleet get here and I need out of this suit for a while.” Jack was glad to see the air pressure already start to rise.