Battleship Destroyer (112 page)

Jack looked at the case of the generator shaking his head thinking. He could see the plasma flowing
through the tube down the cascade of plates and the power that was flowing off the plates through the phase controller and out the cable to the guns power breakers and everything looked like it should be except not one Amp of power. "Ok Pan, run a power test for me please."

"Sorry Captain Turner but the
Godguns are already charged. We have no load to put on it." Pan started scribbling on her pad again for a few seconds and then looked up. "We are just finishing installing a generator up in the forward 2 gundeck to power the 5(3) inch and 3(2) inch guns. Supplanting the generators already there if we can make the plasma generator work. We can pull significant power through that generator by cycling through those guns."

"Ok?" Jack looked at his watch. "Let's get going before I have to return to the bridge."  He said as he headed for the hatch.

The elevator platform popped up into the top Auxiliary gundeck. Pan led the way over to the crystal pipe that came up through the deck then bent over to an exact copy including the size of the plasma electrical generators in the Godgun mounts. The conventional fusion generator the aliens had already added the week before was on the other side of the elevator platform on standby.

Jack shook his head. "Isn't that a bit over kill
Pan? A generator half this size would be killing it and then some."

"No time for the work to redesign a smaller generator at the moment Captain Turner. Though we have added lines of programming to the gun controllers to take the added power to decrease the charging times on the guns."

"Come Pan, the guns are already doing several rounds a second now." Jack patted the new generator. "Well let's get started before I have to return to the bridge. Tell me when you are ready. I will order the guns fired."

"The generator is
already hooked to the guns sir. We are in the process of running a line up to the shield coils as well. The stern guns and shields will be next."

Ok." Jack tapped his comm. "Weapons we need to test fire the forward 5(3
) inch guns to test one the new generators." Jack looked out through the hull at the hot gasses arching around the ship streaming up behind them. "Fire a round from them all up into our slip stream. No need to target anything, just fire them."

A dozen beams pulsed up from the ship as Jack felt a slight throb in his boots. "Ok Pan run your test.
" Pan nodded to an alien standing next to a panel screen on the bulkhead next to the generator with a schematic of the generator coils on it in the middle and power meters that were reading zero to each side. The alien touched the screen and the power meters burped up into spikes and fell just as fast. "That was anti-climactic. What the hell is wrong?"

Pan and several aliens clustered around the large screen as program code Jack was not familiar with but was, started rushing ac
ross it. "Pan, it would be helpful if I could read…"

"Captain, Weapons, do you want me to fire the 5(3)s again?"

"What?"

"Captain, Tactical, the Spider Battlecruiser target Charley has changed
course out of the cleared area. It looks like they are cutting across where two clouds meat to the clear area trail that made a switch back. Depending how long it takes them to cut across they could cut the intercept time to the lagging transport down to only one light minute from 10 light minutes. Well within the God guns range even in the cloud sir."

"Shit! Damn it. I am coming now. How long before we hit the clear area so we can turn?" Jack ran to the platform and hit the panel for the
auxiliary bridge deck.

"A little under 10 minutes Captain."

Jack turned as the platform dropped. Pan and the aliens deep into discussions as they pointed to calculations or sections of the schematic on the screen. Pan was talking about substandard work to one. While one of the others wiped some of the calculations and started adding new calculations while the alien that had written the original group of calculations told the second what he thought of his intrusion as Jack's head dropped past the edge of the deck. Jack had heard scientists and engineers arguing before on the programs he had been a part of for months but was surprised that it was not just a human trait.

Walking back onto the bridge not even hearing the Captain on the bridge announcement
and took the place of the Exec as he studied the tactical screen. "There is nothing we can do to catch the Spider in time to save the transport sir. They are only minutes away from being in range of the transport."

Jack turned to the targeting screen showing the Spider Battlecruiser in real time with a grainy picture of white hot plasma coning out around its shield as it made a high speed run across the somewhat less dense area where the two clouds had met. The Spider was only having to transvers
e a short section where the two separate cloud’s curved outer shells kissed instead of the whole body of the cloud. Once through into the cleared area it was only a matter of going around a couple bends of cleared trail and they would be within striking range of the slower transport.

Turning back to t
he tactical screen Jack could see the hapless transport. Its Captain knowing time was running out suddenly took a turn down what the map said was a dead end leading away from the surveyed track of cleared areas but with a fraction of the gas particles that had been hindering the transport's speed. The transport accelerated almost doubling its speed down the strait line of the finger between the clouds in seconds. Then tripled it before slowing to make the first corner only to speed up again going in the opposite direction of the squadron.  Shaking his head Jack could not believe the transport Captain was sacrificing himself to save the squadron. Or was he hopping the Spider would continue on after the much juicer pickings of the squadron and leave him alone to eventually hide when he was able to put enough range between himself and the enemy. "Good for him." Jack said to himself. "I hope it works. It will give me time to take out the Spider clearing the way for them all." Except for the Spider Fleet rapidly approaching Jack suddenly remembered. No, if he can lose himself deep enough into the cloud and get cold, he needs to stay there and make his slow way to another check point after the enemy fleet disburses back out of the cloud.

The bridge watched on the targeting screen as the Spider br
oke out into the clear and suddenly a hundred pinpoints of light streaked towards it to impact on its massive still white hot front shields without even getting near the vulnerable stern. Shaking his head. "Comm, get me the Commander of the squadron. It is time to stop wasting torpedoes."

"Captain, Tactical, I only read a few hundred torpedoes left
sir."

"What the hell happened to them all? They had thousands."

"I can't control them sir but the ones I can read are set on immediate attack upon detection. I bet the Spider's shield deck looks like the surface of the average moon sir. Why are they not set on stealth wolf attack sir? Attacking its ass after the Spider has passed would have gotten a few hits and slowed it down. Well that is if they were not targeted on the damn thick casings of the engines or weapons and if they knew where the venerable spots were on the ship. I am sure we put all that in the transmissions we made sir."

"As I said a real waste
all around if morons don't bother to read." The Spider made its way up around the bends in the clear area following the squadrons trail.  Its shield still white hot from gas friction as it kept up its speed.

"The squadron is not acknowledging our transmission Sir." Said the Comm Officer.

The Spider raced past the finger the lone transport had turned up and kept going to Jack's relief.  Then suddenly turned around so its engines could slow it back down. Jack watched hopelessly as it went back and started up the finger to follow the transport. With the transports range opened out to several light seconds Jack was surprised when the Spider fired its 4 main Godguns as the transport rushed down a strait section of the finger it was on making good speed. The two beams hit the stern of the transport knocking out the two good engines and the main fusion cores. The transport started tumbling.

It took the transport a good minute but it managed to get
stabilized again with an engine running again trying to slow it down before it hit the next bend in the clear area.

The Spider turned back around and started slowing down. As it came to a stop and started back down the finger to follow the squadron it fired again
. All 4 beams hit the transport in the stern knocking the single remaining engine out and sending the transport into a tumble again as it headed at speed toward the cloud wall at the next turn.

Jack wanted to scream as he closed his eyes and counted to ten.
The Spider had cut across the corner of the finger to resume the trail after the squadron. Turning its sensors ahead, scanning the area of pursuit looking again for short cuts to help it catch up to the squadron. The Spider ship was taking it for granted that the transport would burn itself up when it entered the cloud at the end of the strait section of the passageway.

Jack looked at the screen of the tumbling doomed transport as it approached the cloud wall. A tear came to his eyes as he tried to keep from screaming or crying. H
is jaw and neck knotting up until he could not breathe.

Then the transport only seconds from the wall suddenly came to life. The ship
straightened out and the transport entered the cloud stern first punching a tunnel through the cloud with its engine section heating up until it was white hot. Hull sections started sloughing off the transport tumbling away in fireballs as it rapidly slowed.

The engine section was quickly consumed with the cargo sections starting to take the heat and then a massive plasma bubble started forming around the stern of the ship as it penetrated the cloud. The plasma streaming back
alongside hiding the transport and Jack suddenly realized what it was.

The transport was a tanker and not a cargo ship and the Captain was using the reaction mass to cool the ship as it slowed it
s plunge through the cloud. Jack started shaking his head. If the transport started tumbling before it could stop the side forces would tear it apart no matter how much reaction mass they had to throw away. "Come on you can do it. You can do it." Jack found himself chanting.

Looking back at the map trying to decide if the transport was far enough away from the spider not to be detected if it managed to survive long enough to stop and spotted the density readings for that section of cloud. Shaking his head and smiling. If the transport managed to stop deep in that section of cloud it would be safe. The section it was h
eaded for was many times denser than any readings he had yet seen. The section of cloud was not far from forming a gas giant in the next few million years. The transport would be undetectable once he stopped and cooled down. Evidentially what the transport's Captain had planned. Jack decided he had to meet that Captain if the rest of them survived long enough to.

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

The Red Pepper entered the clear area with little velocity left and turned to an attack heading to intercept the Spider ship a good 5 minutes before it could get within God gun range of the squadron. Hopefully they could take the Battle cruiser by surprise and knock it out before it had time to fire at them. Jack did not have to order the ship opened back up to full cooling on all the radiators as the crew already knew what to do but out of habit from The Game, he did anyway along with a hundred other orders to prepare the ship for combat. He even made sure all the aliens were stuffed into their Geebunks with the rest of the crew this time. He wished he had time to let the crew out of their suits for a few minutes but with most of the ship in vacuum that was impossible. They would just have to wait until they took care of this Spider ass hole and then they could take a long break before they had to worry about the enemy fleet. The one thing he was hoping he would not have to deal with once he caught up to the squadron and they could zip away down his tunnels and be long gone before the fleet arrived. He was getting used to making tunnels and was starting to flesh out a way to be able to turn while making one.

Doing over a thousand Gee
s down a straight cleared path for half a minute Jack ordered the ship turned around and they were again tunneling their way through the clouds but this time they would punch through directly behind the Spider ship with their guns already aimed and ready to destroy it. Though Jack had decided that using the crossed beam approach was just a little dangerous for such close quarters. Not wanting a repeat of trying to create a sun again he had even restricted to shooting the Godguns one at a time over four seconds targeting the forward command section of the hull with the 16(8)s as well as the 5(3) concentrating on the weapons and engines for the first few shots. Once they were put out of commission they could concentrate on the ship's hull at their leisure.

"15 minutes to clear area and target Captain." The Navigator said.

"All weapons on line and ready. Targeting loaded and ready." The Weapons Officer reported.

As Ships status reports continued to come in, Jack's mind started wondering. Tapping his comm. "Pan, any progress on those plasma
pipe generators?"