Battleship Destroyer (48 page)

The ship close to the
ships starboard side started to drift toward the Parsley and Jack moved the Parsley to one side to give the ship time to react and then hit the emergency com at the top of his board. "USS Ketchup! Watch your position. Please steepen your turn."

"
Ketchup to Parsley. What the hell is going on? We are having problems with the grav generators." The Captain of the ship was straining to breath and talk. "We are at five Gee's on the deck reporting casualties. Request permission to ease maneuver."

Jack looked out the side
screen and frowned. "Negative Ketchup. Cross connect your secondary power supply to your coils but maintain maneuvering thrust.  Command to all ships; give the Ketchup room. Slide over but maintain thrust."

"What the hell are you doing Turner? Get the ship back on
course now. Ensign plot a course for the fleet back to our heading."

"No Captain. Not at that monster
sir." she said pulling her hand from beneath Jacks to point at something off to the side.

The Captain's mouth dropped open as she
looked at Jack busy trying to keep the ship away from the wondering ships in the formation and the Ensign who looked terrified, starring through the side bulkhead screen that showed nothing to the Captain.  Examining the fleet tactical, she saw several ships drifting dangerously close to others.  She slapped the fleet comm.  "All ships cross connect grav coil power supplies.  Watch your spacing and the ships around you Gentlemen."

"Captain!" The Comm officer turned around. "Casualties being reported by half the ships in the fleet sir.  The
Vinegar, Garlic, Butter, ahhh many ships asking permission to reduce thrust sir."

The Captain l
ooked at Jack busy with both hands flying over the control board trying to keep his own ship in position in the fleet while glancing at something out the port side viewport with a worried tight lipped frown verging on panic every few seconds. His line of sight followed something that seemed to pass the ship rather rapidly before returning to something ahead of the ship. The Ensign still frozen starring in shock. Looking out the port herself still without seeing anything and then back at the frozen expression of the gawking Ensign.  She turned to the Comm officer. "Permission denied maintain thrust at all costs." The Captain shook her head frowning as she looked back at the screens and then at Jack and the Ensign's terrified face and back at the side external screen. "Sensors focus on space ahead on our course. Is something out there or not?" A few seconds later she thought she could see something but was not sure. Something that was not there but was. It took another 5 minutes for her to finally be sure she was seeing a haze slowly growing more distinct mass off to one side in the direction the ship was headed. No, some kind of cloud. The ship seemed to be headed toward a faint cloud. Looking down at the Ensign still starring.  "Ensign." Said the Captain.

"Captain!" T
he sensor operator practically yelled. "I am picking up a Class R cloud sir; small Ice and rocks sir. At a temperature so close to absolute Zero our sensors could not detect it at range.  Density readings have a 90% chance of at least one ship being hit by a one pound rock with smaller rocks impacting multiple ships per minute sir."

The Ensign slowly looked up and sat back in her chair
as the sensor screen came to full life. "I thought I was seeing things." She looked up startled at the Captain then started rapidly hitting keys. "Captain, I think we are going to miss it but not by much. We are starting to climb up to starboard toward a notch or gap in the cloud. It is going to be close." The Ensign said. "If we had more time…We have been out running the range of our sensors Captain." The Ensign looked up half scared as she turned around to look at the Captain as did half the bridge crew.

The Captain
's face remained calm as she forced a half smile as she looked at the navigation plot seemingly unconcerned. The crew slowly returned to concentrate on their stations. But she knew that if they had waited until they could see the cloud on their screens they would have plowed right into it with no possibility of missing it and at their speed the cloud could have done a lot of damage to the fleet. Looking back at Jack as the bridge seemed to settle down she shook her head as Jack kept the ship on course with a more relaxed normal manner while keeping a close eye on the edge of the growing cloud as they approached it.

"Captain." the Comm officer turned around in her seat. "Ah half the ships are requesting permission to increase thrust
if they can sir. Some think they can get up to 130%."

The Captain looked at the Ensign. "Navigator are you sure we are going to miss the cloud?"

Looking closely at her screen she frowned and without turning around. "Yes sir. It will be close. I have changed course a few points to center on the notch Jack was headed for. Catching the fringes of it with a few gas particles that should do little, hopefully no damage to the fleet sir."

"Very well
. Comm, Fleet; maintain plot. Navigator, turn the fleet into the cloud just before we enter the fringe. Even gas particles can damage a ship hitting it broadside." Turning to the science station.  "Lieutenant leave a beacon torpedo here to slow down and mark this for our following squadron as well as future ships. And make sure it is IFF coded."

"Programing it now sir.
" Said the weapons officer.

Jack leaned a little closer to the view port. "Now that I can relax a little I have to
admit that cloud is quiet beautiful." They could see a finger sticking up to one side of their course as they rapidly passed it in their approach and soon it became obvious that they were headed for a notch in the gas cloud as it continued to grow to monster proportions.

"Captain
.” Said Comm.  "All ships report grav coils cross connected. Sending casualty reports to medical. No major damage reported. Oh Captain sir. I... I have reports of deaths sir from high G falls and even… Even… Sir! Coils failed to keep up with the acceleration. God sir. The Honey sir. One whole deck jumped to 15 Gees before cross connecting returned the deck to normal. At least 20 died that were not in their bunks sir. They are still counting though they have found a few survivors not in their bunks but they are critical."

Jack turned starring at the Comm. Officer.
Frozen in place as the ship started wondering toward another.

"Mr. Turner!"

Jack glanced at the approaching ship and changed course sliding back to the ships station as he bit his lip.

"Mr. Turner. It is not your fault. You did good savi
ng the fleet. Hitting that cloud would have torn the fleet to pieces probably destroying several ships at least, if not most. We have learned a new lesson to keep the coils cross connected for just such emergencies even after we beef up the power supplies for new ships. It is a shame that sometimes lessons cost the lives of good crewmen but it cannot be helped.  All we can do is make sure their sacrifices were not in vain. At least now we know what needs improving next and put sensors at the top of the list."  She watched Jack grimace as he stared at the approaching cloud.

"Captain, Comm. More Casualty reports coming in.  Another ship has reported massive…"

"Comm! Forward all casualty reports to medical and shut up. The bridge does not need a running commentary. We will get a full report later." Taking a deep breath she wondered how Jack could have seen the cloud when no one else could. Especially up through the ship since he wasn't looking at the screen when he panicked, but it was going to have to wait. "Mr. Turner, do you have any ideas how we can improve our sensors to keep this from happening again?"

Jack
stared ahead for several minutes as they worked their way toward the top of the cloud while other islands and fingers started disappearing past and below them.

"Ensign, how long before we turn into the cloud?"

"I don't know how Jack did it but he had us going damn close to this notch through its edge to start with. I did not have to fine tune course by much.  I am not detecting anything in the 10,000 mile wide, 100,000 mile deep notch but I am still delaying turning into it as long as possible to get as high as possible into it. I have it set for 32 minutes from…. Mark... that will put us close but going through the upper part of the notch instead of the lower as it runs up across the top of the cloud."

Jack took a breath.
"The problem with sensors is the speed of light being so slow." Jack started talking as he watched the ships around him very closely. "That is Ok, with most passive sensors detecting objects with heat that do not move fast. But for things out in the deep cold space this fare out between stars where heat is all but nonexistent we have a problem. That is why we use gravity wave sensors but we still have a hard time detecting small masses from any distance or spread out such as this cloud.  The week gravity waves from the spread out matter become part of the back ground waves."

Jack thought for a few seconds.
"While I don't have a clue right now about single ships, I think that if we connect the fleet ships individual sensors together with lasorcomms between ships into one large sensor array, we should have no problem seeing even this small mass density in plenty of time." Turning around in his chair to look at the Captain. "Give me time and I will figure it out Captain." Then turned back to watching the fleet and space ahead.

Jack turned
to glance at the Ensign a half hour later as she counted down to one and he started the slow easy pitch over as they approached the canyon through the cloud. Backing off gradually on the throttles at the same time. The ship entered the top of the canyon and raced up the slot. The fleet pitching over fast enough to stay above the cloud but not raise above the rim. Jack watched the towers from the cloud raise far above them on the port and starboard sides as the stars again became sharp points of light ahead. It looked like something had simply gouged out the canyon to make the towers. Hours later the canyon started dropping down away from the fleet and then finally the cloud disappeared behind them.

Jack
finally sat back and relaxed as he was tapped on his shoulders. "I relieve you sir."

"What?" Jack looked up at the bridges clock. He was two hours into the next shift. Looking around he saw that no one even looked familiar on the bridge
except for the Ensign who was being relieved as well. Checking his board one last time he gave the pilot the ships course, known obstacles ahead and condition of the propulsion engines then got up. His muscles creaking as he moved working out the cramps. Jack stood beside the other pilot for a good minute just taking in the sights relaxing.

"You are relieved Mr. Turner." The First Officer said. "Please leave
the bridge." The Ensign waited at the hatch looking at Jack.

As they passed the open hatch to the Captain's day cabin the Captain's voice carried out into the passageway. "Mr. Turner will you please come in."

Jack stopped in mid stride. Stepped back to the hatch and stuck his nose through it. "Yes Captain?"

"Come in for a minute.
" The Captain was laying on the bunk with her back against the bulkhead with her hands behind her head. Her legs crossed. The bunk was surrounded by screens showing what the command chair usually did.  A computer terminal and chair took up the end of the narrow compartment at the foot of the bed, anther chair sat beside the head of the bed at a writing desk. A small door to a head, a sink, drawers, cabinets and a closet big enough for a battle suit lined the bulkhead of the passageway from the bridge.  Pointing to the terminal.  "Sit… What was it that you saw Mr. Turner that prompted you to take control of the fleet?"

"Ah.
" With no idea what to say he didn't even try. "Thanks Captain but I would rather stand. I have been sitting a long time. My butt and back are killing me."  Jack started stretching his back from side to side as he rubbed his butt.

The Ensign poked her head around the corner standing in the hatch.

"Come in Ensign. You saw it too. At least you can sit." The Ensign slowly, tentatively stepped into the cabin and sat down at the terminal.  "So what did you see Mr. Turner?"

"Ah just a big blank growing wall sir. That is until I spotted
some fingers and islands going by to give me some depth and I realized how close we were and that I was sure we did not want to go through it. I tried once in The Game on a similar cloud. I almost lost my ship and years later I watched an enemy fleet hit one almost as dense as that one looked and all I had to do after wards was pick off the damaged survivors. I was able to capture a half dozen ships. Though a couple almost cost as much to repair as buying one. The ones I felt sorry for were the ones I watched come apart at the seams as the cloud tor them up."

"What
the hell. How long have you been playing The Game? No never mind for now." Turning to the Ensign. "What did you see?"

"The same thing once Jack pointed it out a dozen times
. I saw the solid wall and the finger sticking out to the sides of us getting closer as we were turning.  I thought we were a goner for sure. I was Captain of one of the ships in the fleet Jack talked about being destroyed. The ship came apart around me. I had to start over. It took me months to work back up to my own ship again and then I figured out what Jack's name was in the game."