Battleship Destroyer (51 page)

Turning to the pilot. "What can you see on the screen?"

Shrugging his shoulders. "Ah, just what the Captain said Lieutenant. Not much."

Narrowing his eyes skeptically and pointing at the deck. "Do you see the power cables running below the deck grates to the control consoles?"

"Oh come on Lieutenant. No one can see under the deck grates. Heck as dark as it is, I can't even see the deck grates. Ah do you mean if we turn on the lights and raise the deck grates?"

Jack could not believe his hears. Swallowing he continued. "
This room looks as bright as day to me with the light given off by the gravcoils and power lines running through the deck and in the consoles not to mention the overhead screens."

The Lieutenant looked at Jack in disbelief. "Hell sir. I can barely see you as a dark blob now that my eyes have gotten used to the dark. What are you talking about gravcoil and power lines lighting up sir?"

"Jack!" The Ensign interrupted placing a hand on his arm. "Jack, we are the only ones that can see all those things. To everyone else space is just a dark empty void except for the pin point light from bright stars. They do not see the gravity and all the other energy waves we see."

Jack looked around at the bridge crew as
someone just entering the bridge groped their way across from console to console bumping into things using her hands to feel her way around. "What? That is impossible!"

The Captain was about to say those same words and stopped as Jack said them.

Shaking his head Jack turned to the Ensign. "Ahh. What exactly can normal people see Ensign, since you seem to have some idea and I am in the dark, figuratively speaking."

"Ahh oh shit. That is a hard one. How do you show someone what the blind can see?" The Captain's mouth dropped open as she heard those words. The Ensign pushed Jack aside and started tapping on the virtual key board and the main screen went blank with only a few stars on it and nothing else. "That is what everyone else sees Jack."

"Yes I know that is all the screens show until I started tuning them to the other frequencies, but so what?"

"No Jack. That is what everyone else sees all the time. Even out the ports and in the open sky at night." As Jack stared at the screen she tapped again and the screen changed to show the darkened bridge. "And that is what the bridge looks like to the rest of the bridge crew and the Captain."

"What? No? No. That can't be. That is not possible. You have to be trying to put one over on me." Turning to the Captain. "Captain. Is that what you see the bridge is like right now?"

Not believing what she was hearing she answered. "Yes Lieutenant. That is what we are seeing. Ensign. Can you show me what the bridge looks like to you and Mr. Turner?"

"Ah... I think so Captain. Just give me a minute. It won't be exact but I think I can come close." She started typing and the screen started lighting up. First the power lines under the deck running to the different pieces of equipment and consoles and overhead screens lit up. "The power lines to the overhead lights start glowing when the lights are turned on but the visible light overwhelms the glow."  The deck coils appeared with glowing circles radiating up from the deck and around the consoles and people with a soft purplish reflection off of the bulkheads and everyone. Barely perceptual waves of purple light seemed to wash over the bridge from different random directions at seemingly random levels of brightness. "The purplish glow is gravity waves from the coils and objects around the ship. I added what we would see if we were going through a star system or near a planet and moon with other ships in the area." A light orange glow was added to the background again almost imperceptible. "The soft orange is the background radiation of the universe. Again it is washed out by any other light or energy source at all." The bridge lit up blindingly from the side on the screen for a second. "Oh that was the radar from one of the other ships washing across us. We can see that from really long distances and the reflections almost as good as the ship that sends it."

The people standing on the bridge suddenly lit up with their hearts beating in their chests sending blood flowing
throughout their bodies and then their brains started glowing with small pulses streaking through their spinal cords and again throughout their bodies lighting up the areas around them.

"What the hell
, you can see peoples bodies and minds?" Jack snapped, shocked.

Looking up at Jack
, her fingers rapped across the board and the glowing bodies disappeared. "Sorry I got carried away." Turning to the Captain.  "There are a few finer details Captain, but what you are seeing on the screen is pretty much what Jack and I see normally unless the ship's lights are on, washing over everything else blinding us until we can only see what you and everyone else can in normally visible light." Taking a breath as she looked at Jack trying to gage what his reaction was going to be to the discovery that he was different than everyone else. It did not look good. Frowning she decided to try to give him more time to digest the information. "Fact is visible light is so overwhelmingly bright and painful at times, I have to kill every visible light source in my cabin, including the wall clock, to be able to sleep at night." Turning to the Captain who looked just as shocked as Jack.  Which was not good. "Jack is new at this seeing radiation thing and it will take time for him to sort things out in his mind. At least for some of the frequencies. His parents after he reached 5 or 6 went out of their way to discourage any talk of his abilities putting them down as just a kids wild imagination. That is if they didn't just ignore what he said."

"How the hell do you know so much about me and what I can see?" Jack demanded from the Ensign. "I don't know you. I don't remember you from the Turner Joy."

"Godstar Jack don't be so dense. We were born only a few weeks apart and were the only survivors from the Dead Infant years. I grew up sleeping with you until...”

"No! I would remember you. The girl I grew up with was smaller and looked different and
did not have those damn things on her chest…. Her name was not yours." He tapped her name badge above her breast pocket.

"You never called me by my gi
ven name. I remember now, you never knew my real name when we were growing up. Hell, I did not even now it until I entered high school but it was me you dense Moran. Damn it, you even said I looked like your Angel a few weeks ago. But refused to believe it. Quit being so damn Dense Jack."

"Enough you two!" Bellowed the Captain. "What the hell are we headed for Jack. What is that our sensors are seeing?
That you can see that we can't?"

"How the hell did you get here?"

Looking up to the overhead, she shook her head.  "Does it matter? I am here."

"It
matters to me. How did you get here? In the Navy and on the Red Dwarf out of all the ships in the fleet and on that bridge and …"

"Now you want to talk fate or destiny or what?
I don't know how the hell you found me after I lost track of you after Bootship. You sure as hell didn't try tracking me down. All I know is that I followed you into the Navy to kill you for deserting me when I needed you the most!" She shouted as tears started to run down her face.

"I deserted you! You are the one that hates and deserted me!"

"I said, Enough!" The Captain rolled her eyes. "Jack! The Sensors. If you know what is out there I need to know. Now!"

"Ahh. Yes Captain
Sir." Jack stared at the Ensign for a few more seconds and then turned to the screen roughly pushing the Ensign away from and taking the keyboard. Jack went back to playing with the screens inputs. "Ok, I have filtered down and created a program to eliminate random fields and convert what I evidentially see and you can't into light everyone should be able to see and we are left with the two enemy black hole drives not fare away. I have cut out the ones in the distance we need not worry about for now. Which is what the sensors were seeing but just did not understand. After all we never had to worry or thought we needed to track Blackhole drives before." Pointing at the one on the Port side. This one is definitely brighter than the distant stars and looks slightly oblong and I think and the sensors are already telling us that it is closing, coming our way. Which is why you called me up here in the first place. I have given you as close to what I see as possible but to me the light from it is slightly off color but I don't know what that means." Jack turned and pointed to the other corner of the screen. "I see another black hole drive like it over there but it is much fainter farther away and I get the impression that while we are catching up to it is actually going  in the same direction as us but I am not sure until I can focus our sensors array on it."

The Captain turned to the sensor officer. "
What does your sensors see concerning this other point on the screen?"

"I am looking now sir."

A minute later the Captain growing impatient said. "Lieutenant Pratt?"

"Still looking Sir but I am not seeing anything but stars sir."

The Ensign stepped to the science station. "Excuse me lieutenant." She leaned over around the officer sitting there to access the controls. "Ah Lieutenant Turner, could you send your converter program over to this console please." Jack smiled and touched the screen with his fingers. The area around the spot started to focus and sharpen, seeming to enlarge, to show a bigger brighter version of what was on it before. Its plot line finally appeared going in the same direction as they were but moving toward them, according to the distance readout. A couple seconds later the Ensign spoke up. "It looks like this ship is headed for where the other ship left from. This one is a half a light year away, accelerating at approximately 300 Gee's in the same direction we are going. But we are catching up to it. The other enemy ship is only a Quarter light year away doing approximately 300 Gees toward us." She did some calculations and smiled.  "The one headed in our direction will pass us close enough to our course to intercept sir but will miss the cloud that almost got us as it heads for its home fleet. At our closing speed we would be well within our gun range before it could even turn to run if it could out run us sir." Turing to the Captain.  "With the 12 guns on each of our fleet's ships firing as one and the fact the enemy ship has to be one of the damaged scouts with only one or two armored decks if any, we should have no problem destroying it as we pass sir."

"Oh, really Ensign." The Captain looked at the
Ensign with the light from her terminal on her face smiling at her. "I have to admit it would be quite a morale booster if we could finally destroy one of these bastards even if it does seem a rather unfair advantage of 36 to 1." Looking around at the screen she punched up the nearest one headed for them that they would be targeting. "We are not even sure our weapons will even damage the sucker but we have to start someplace.  At the speed we will be intercepting the ass hole, we will not get a second chance. Luckily, nor will they.  Navigator, plot an attack course for the fleet as target Alpha please.  Oh, let's not give away our new capability if they don't already now and reduce our acceleration back down to 300 Gees and give me time to intercept when ready."

A few minutes later. "Intercept time is 6
hours at 300 Gee's. Implementation scheduled for 15 minutes sir."

"Very will Navigator. Comm, aler
t the fleet that we plan on attacking."

"Ah Captain." Jack walked up to the Captain. "Ah, I, ah
.  I think.  If we attack in one mass. Ah. Even. Even at 600 times the speed of light we will be passing at. The ah. The enemy may still be able to out maneuver us if he sees us in time. If ha, if you want to stay at only 300 Gee's. Not ah, to mention the fact that the, they, as one ship, can maneuver, ah, change course faster than any fleet.  If... ah sir. It would be a good idea to employ a… a ah.  A pincher attack assuring that the majority of the fleet will be in range no matter what the enemy ship does to escape sir. A five or even six pronged attack sir. It. Ah it would also make it harder for the enemy to target anyone ship and allow each 5 or 6 ship squadron to maneuver faster than the whole fleet sir. And it would preclude the enemy from facing any armor it has left at the whole squadron as one without the rest having clear shots at unarmored areas of the ship sir." Taking a deep breath. "Not to mention sir that the more ships you have in a group the smaller your arc of fire is for each ship as the enemy passes and the more likely it is for one of our ships to hit one of our own. A ah, and a fleet divided into a 5 pronged attack force on a single high speed passing target at close range has twice the firing time as a single massed fleet. Assuring a better chance at destroying the target sir."

"Ok Mr. Turner." The Captain looked at Jack skeptically. "Just how do you know all that?"

"I ah. I." Jack wanted to suddenly hide. Wishing he had not said anything. After all what does playing video games have to do with reality but his grandfather had taught him that once started he had to finish no matter how stupid the statement was. Looking down at the deck.   "My grandfather gave me a game called (Battleship Commander) to play with my friends. He always called it The Game. He said he stole it along with the X-Design Engineering programs from the military when he left. You should try it sometime. It is incredibly realistic and is not forgiving and a bitch even in the basic training mode. I must have quit playing the damn thing a dozen times but always went back again to try a new strategy or new ship's design or figure out where I went wrong the last time." Jack closed his eyes feeling childish shame for speaking up about the stupid game he was always in trouble about back on the Turner Joy.