Battleship Destroyer (68 page)

The fleet turned toward one of the central picket squadrons only a half day max acceleration below them.

The Ensign waited the half hour it took to make the turn. "Mr. Turner we are
on an intercept course with the central picket squadron of 6 ships and will intercept them in 12 hours sir."

"Sir, the enem
y fleet behind us is turning down to intercept us at speed in 6 hours. We are no longer accelerating away from them as we make our dive while they are continuing at their full 350 Gee's thrust." The Tactical Officer said.

A good half hour later the Ensign declared. "Mr. Turner
. Our target squadron along with all the scattered Picket squadrons are thrusting down toward the top edge of the cloud and will rendezvous in 18 hours 1 light hour above the cloud and 6 hours before we intercept them." Shaking his head. "Exactly according to plan, sir." The Tactical Officer spoke up excitedly.

"Very well. Maintain Course and thrust."

For 3 hours the fleet stayed on course as the enemy fleet from behind finished its turn and starting their own dive to intercept the Republic Fleet diving down onto one of their picket squadrons. The enemy's main fleet continued using full thrust to increase the closing rate as Jack had expected. Then the bridge crew seemed to jump as Jack suddenly said. "Number One, 250 Gees please."

Ten minutes later Tactical spoke up.
"We have cut the time to reach the massed picket fleet Captain to 20 hours, they are dropping their rendezvous point down closer to the cloud and will mass only a half hour before intercept sir." Tactical calmly announced. "Our trailing enemy fleet is turning to intercept us in 3 hours sir. They will be heading down toward the cloud at a 45 degree angle sir."

"Thank you Lieutenant."

Another hour passed as Jack ordered hot tea with extra sweetener and stretched in the Command chair. "Number One." Jack suddenly bellowed as he stretched for the third time in as many minutes. "You may go to 300 Gee's if you please."

It only took a few minutes for the Tactical Officer to announce.   "The
Main trialing fleet has changed course to intercept us in 2 hours sir. We are now intercepting the Target Picket Squadron in 20 hours, again they are dropping down closer to the cloud. Sir."

Jack sat there for almost an hour
fighting to keep from fidgeting and walking around the bridge. He was fully in The Game Zone. He knew from experience that if he showed signs of nervousness or not being sure like doing the one thing he felt like doing (Puking in the nearest waste basket),  the bridge crew would pick it up and could do some amazingly stupid things when the time came. Even worse was the fact that he could not speed real life up to cut the waiting time down to something a little more bearable. He had yet to develop what most fleet Captain’s did over time, a way to pass the time without going nuts. Even though the ship's Captain kept popping onto the bridge every now and then trying to show him. With his mind folly focused on the enemy like he always did in The Game when minutes always counted, he did not even notice her most of the time. The hours of concentration started taking their toll on him. "Number one 350 gees please."

"
Enemy Fleet A, changing course to intercept in a half hour. They are headed down after us at a 70 degree angle now Mr. Turner. They must want us bad. Why don't they just let the fleet we are diving on take us out?"

Jack smiled. "Good question.  But probably because we suckered
them in by not starting our dive at 350 Gees to begin with and they turn out to be more human or animal than is good for them, but good for us. The first fleet commander wants the Glory of killing us something awfully bad.  Mr. Gagnon, 400 gees please."

The Captain
finally came in and sat at the back of the Bridge. "Well Mr. Turner; are you ready?"

Jack jumped out of the chair like a spring. "
Jesses Christ, I have been ready for fracking hours. Damn It. Get off My fracking Back."

The Captain's eyes opened wide as she sat up strait.

Jack's mouth dropped open in shook as he looked around and down at the deck covering his face with his hands trying to hide. "Ah… Ah.” Finally looking back up at the Captain. “Captain; my apologies Sir. I.  Ah. I”

Th
e Tactical Officer turned around. "Main fleet astern will intercept us in 10 minutes at an 80 degree angle doing half the speed of light relative, sir."

"
Very good Tactical." Jack turned and walked around the bridge stopping next to each station for a few seconds then looking at the view screen before going to the next console.

A few minutes
later Jack sat back down, closed his eyes as he held his head up and said a few words and then. "Very well Number one. Initiate side slip maneuver if you please. As soon as you are ready."

"But Lieutenant this is 6 minutes ahead of
schedule."

"Yes I know Commander. Please
initiate turn now. Weapons, you may fire a full spread of torpedoes and missiles set on Mine mode 5."

The ship suddenly
lurched to the side as Number one turned the massive ship along with the fleet as the ship shuddered from torpedoes being flung out away from the bow to the sides of the ship. The fleet took off at 90 degrees to its original diving course at 400 Gees of thrust pushing them out of the rapidly approaching enemy fleet’s path.

"Enemy fleet does not even have time to try
to follow Captain but unless they can pull over 500 Gee's, they cannot even get into gun range sir." Jack said with a smile. "If they have torpedoes they should use them now sir."

"Torpedoes Captain
ah I mean Mr. Turner, hundreds of them sir. They are pulling 900 gees sir. They can make the turn if they have the range. We should have waited the planned 6 minutes sir. Our Torpedoes are running hot and true sir. Oh the enemy fleet is trying to follow us and is pulling 300 gees sir."

Everyone watched the Mai
n enemy fleet zip past them as hundreds of guns shot toward the Republic fleet's direction still fare out of range without getting close. Over a hundred explosions (from the torpedo's and missiles left behind) could be seen on the enemy ships as they passed. "If they do not start pulling out in another minute sir they will not be able to pull out in time and will hit the cloud sir."

"Captain, Weapons, our solid
kinetic warheads should have penetrated the half dozen armored decks at the speed they hit. Point defenses look to have been ineffectual with the warheads already lined up on the enemy ships sir. The hundreds explosions we witnessed should mean something was damaged.

Jack watched as he held his breath waiting but suddenly the enemy fleet turned pointing their engines down at the cloud and at 300 Gees they started the long climb back from certain death.
But at least they were out of the fight for now. "It is a shame we did not have any of The Rock's weapons I just found out about last week. The fusion balls would have worked perfect for taking out this last fleet as they passed behind us."

The First Officer turned around and looked at Jack. "What are Fusion Balls?"

"If they are any good you will find out all about them in just a few hours Number One. You can start accelerating 350 gees on attack course Delta for the targeted picket squadron. ."

"Captain, Tactical, we show 4 enemy ships leaving the enemy fleet
, falling behind pulling less than 220 Gee's. The torpedoes and missiles must have taken out one of their engines. The plot, has them entering the cloud at well over a hundred times the speed of light in 6 hours. If they can't start pulling 300 Gee's in the next minute they are dead sir. It will be too late even if they can make repairs. The main enemy fleet has changed course and will intercept our fleet in 26 hours, their high rate of closing on us has made them over shooting us farther around the cloud and forcing them to turn around to come back at us sir. The best they could do at the speed they were going trying to catch up to us." The Ensign turned around with a big smile. "They are missing our first trap above the cloud but they are out of this little battle Captain. Once we deal with the picket fleet we are home free."

The
Captain turned to Mr. Turner. "Lieutenant you turned a good 6 minutes to soon according to your plan and may have lost my fleet. The Main enemy fleet is going to miss the trap completely and will be able to return and may possible intercept us before we can enter the cloud. The second trap is a failure as well. The enemy Picket squadrons started to scatter as soon as you turned away so the main fleet would miss us stopping your attack on them. You choked Mr. Turner but then I should have expected that from a damn boot Lieutenant."

"No
Captain, circumstances changed only minutes before forcing me to change the plan but that is Ok, I have planned for that. Besides he may take us up on our offer later if he decides we don't have a battleship fleet in the clouds after all. Let's just wait and see what happens sir."

"Just what
circumstances changed Lieutenant? I did not see anything change."

"I am sorry Sir but it is hard to explain just now. I have too much else to watch and worry about sir."

Tactical burst out almost shouting. "Picket squadron, Target Alpha, has changed course again and is now headed toward the cloud along with the rest of the squadrons that were starting to spread out again. They will now rendezvous and intercept us only minutes above the cloud."

The Republic
fleet plunged down toward the cloud as the enemy squadrons started to converge again. The Captain watched Jack smile satisfied at the good news, rub his eye's and then the bridge of his nose before shaking his head trying to clear it before he turned to the navigator. "Plot, how fast are we going across the cloud?"

"Sir we are
skimming over the cloud at a 135 times the speed of light."

"That is too fast we need to slow down a little. Helm
turn our tail into our course twelve degrees." Jack watched the fleet change their angle of deceleration. "Navigator, fine tune the course to intercept the cloud at a velocity that will put us over the trap coordinates on time. Captain are the ships from the Rock ready?"

"Mr. Turner they are in Comm silence. We are not going to take a chance anything will give them away."

"Oh, yes of course Captain. I should have remembered that."

"Sorry
Mr. Turner, but you don't have the responsibility, I do." The Captain frowned. "Yours is just tactics and not the rest of the crap." Getting up she stepped up next to Jack. "We have another 10 hours before we go to battle stations. Go get some sleep and eat."

"No Captain.
Too much can happen over those hours and if I am not here to make the only right instant decision like I just did, we could lose the fleet."

"
I have yet to hear you justify what you just did as it is. The ships are all on course. Fate is in the driver's seat and I want you fresh for the battle. I will not have you choking again just when we need you most. Come, what could happen now anyway? "

"Well now
let's just keep the list simple of all the things that could go wrong. The main enemy picket fleet in the next 10 hours, probably when we turn and start decelerating, could decide to suddenly intercept us up here with it 's separate squadrons spread out as they already are. Boxing us in to trap us between them and ignore and accept the losses that would cost them (as we concentrated on individual squadrons), instead of them massing down below able to present a unified shield wall we could not flank. Cutting our ability to separate into squadrons and flank them even though it would still not allow us to win against such a large fleet outnumbering us. But it would cost us the battle since they would not be in position to spring our trap, unless we prevented that at the first sign with the proper response." Jack took a deep breath. "And then what happens if the picket fleet spots the transport fleet in the cloud they are approaching and rush us before taking them on or rush them or a dozen other things I could think of. No. The next 8 hours are critical and every second could make the difference between winning or losing everything." Jack looked around the bridge. "Get me something to eat and someplace in the corner I can sack out for a couple hours and I will be fine."

"No you won't. I
relieve you Mr. Turner. Now get off the bridge Lieutenant." The Captain folded her arms across her chest. "Now Lieutenant."

"Very well Captain. You have the Conn. Sir." Jack got up
saluted and went to the science station. "Ensign be sure to keep a close eye on the main fleet for the next hour. Any change in aspect or thrust emissions or anything, you start screaming.” Jack turned to the Plot officer. "By the way, how many ships are headed for the rendezvous and how many will make it in time?"

"We can detect 47
but only 42 will make it there before we arrive and the trap is scheduled. The other 5 will be at least 15 minutes late after we intercept the rest. They are coming from back around the cloud almost to our original entry point and have been dragging their feet the whole time for some reason. Your last course change moved the intercept point 30 minutes farther up the track closer to them but they slowed down even more and it looks like they are dropping down even closer to the cloud top to make sure they were late. I don't think this commander wants to play with the fleet."