Battleship Destroyer (8 page)

The
main enemy fleet finally decide that the drop tank attack was bigger than they had at first thought and turned most of their stern ordinance toward the mass of tanks which Jack had expected since those guns could only take pot shots at the main Republic fleet anyway as they maneuvered around their base course. Jack was surprised when it took them several minutes to hit the first tank even though the tanks were not maneuvering. As the enemy squadron of cruisers and destroyers finally reached accurate range of the tanks, Jack winced as he saw pieces of tanks start flying away and started adding up their replacement costs in his head without realizing it.

Then it was Jacks turn. The
4 torpedo salvoes finally came alive and seconds later were within point defense range and the enemy fleet erupted with its small weapons taking out way more than half of the rapidly approaching torpedoes before they hit. What made Jack smile was the fact that with the point defense weapons concentrating on the torpedoes they ignored the small smart missiles he had launched with them. While the torpedoes hit blowing big chunks out of the ships hulls and mass tanks, few hits were on engines and main gun turrets.  They left the ships mostly undamaged as far as he was concerned. But the missiles targeting the point defense 3 inch quads, rapid fire 5 inch, 6inch, and 8 inch medium gun turrets, took out a good percentage of them with direct hits using their high speed sub caliber penetrating warheads. Concentrated around Jacks primary target ships and the ships nearby, opening corridors for his Destroyer flights to go through.

Jack smiled as he stepped up to the pilot's station dismissing the pilot.
The game said he had to be the Captain now after playing the game for a decade since he was 8 years old and becoming a Captain at 16, (no matter how hard he tried to stay just a pilot), but it could not keep him from piloting his own ship into battle.  He had trained his crew well and did not need to devote that much of his attention to them allowing him to concentrate on piloting the ship while simply giving short commands for the crew and First Officer that was a hot body to respond to when needed. The advantages of conducting set, halfway predictable battles and hours of boring drills.

Jack lined up his Destroyer
on his assigned section of the targeted battleship with his flight of 3 other Destroyers close beside him lined up in a row and on their own targeted sections of the same ship. The other two flights were targeting different battleships to either side of his target. His Destroyer's large number of close in weapons including the 5 inch twin gunned and quad 3 inch turrets were well within range to hit the few remaining medium weapons such as 5 inch turrets and above along with the larger missile launchers that were dangerous to the Destroyer. Not that the 3 inch quads and 30mm Gatling guns could not damage the Destroyer but their hits were more annoyance than damaging with the leading edge of his arrow shaped Destroyers well armored against such hits. Though any crewman by chance, hit by the small penetrator rounds if they managed to hit the ship from the side would argue the point when they came back in from being fixed up at the ship's Infirmary. Jack kept the rest of the armor to a minimum, putting some armor around the engines and Command compartments. But not much. Everything else had backups or could be replaced cheaply later without risk of losing the ship.

As soon as he was lined up on his assigned target section of the Enemy Battleship
he gave the order. "Fleet Go hot and fire." Jack pulled the trigger on his control stick. His rapid firing, 8 inch guns shooting yellow hot armor piercing beams able to penetrate at close range what a Battleship's 16 inch gun could from long range, started firing. The 8 heavy guns fixed in the leading edge of his wedged shaped Destroyer firing a beam pulse (called shells) once a second from each. He had replaced the ships big internal Reaction Mass tanks that took up a good portion of the ship, with huge Generators to power the guns. The reason for the drop tanks. The 32 rounds a second from the flight of 4 Destroyers tore into the sides of the battleship knocking out turrets and engines. In some cases coming out the other side of the ship. Though most expended their energy destroying large armored sections of the ship as the shells melted everything in their path unless they hit something hard enough to turn into a huge explosion.

Jack suddenly noticed
in the little window on the corner of his targeting screen that B flight's shells were going through their target like paper. He had been fooled into thinking it was a Battleship when it was a damn Battle cruiser. Hitting his Squadron Comm with his thumb. "B; Split and go low." Jack said giving a pre-arranged order. “B; Split and go low.” He repeated.

The Battle Cruiser
under B flight's guns suddenly started being torn apart as the 8 inch shells hitting it were changed into lower powered deep yellow tinged red beams, while doubling their rate of fire. Then 2 Destroyers of B flight’s 4, veered off (after they dumped a few extra rounds into the original target), to head for what looked like its sister Battle cruiser not far away. Taking it directly up the stern using the yellow hot shells of its armor piercing rounds to make sure they penetrated up the full length of the lightly armored Battlecruiser's hull. The smaller 5s and 3inch gun turrets tearing up the thin armor of their originally targeted Battlecruiser while it was still at close range before turning to hammer the new targeted Battlecruiser’s vitals.

With the normal 8 inch Capacitors too fat to fit into the narrow wedged shaped
Destroyer's hull Jack had designed, he had installed two slightly narrower Capacitors side by side to power each gun. Then took advantage of that to let him fire each capacitor individually putting less power out the gun barrel tube but doubling the rate of fire for the less well protected targets such as Destroyers, Cruisers and even Battlecruisers.

Then
Jack noticed, though only briefly (just to make sure it was happening), missiles and torpedoes leaving the sides of the Destroyers again headed for the surrounding cruisers and battleships taking out even more point defense weapons with the torpedoes targeting the engines and main gun turrets at close range. After 15 seconds of continues firing, the enemy Battleship was starting to wobble and drift as its engines lost power and explosions ripped the hull open from deck to deck. Resisting his urge to shift targets he knew the ship still had several of its big guns left operational and the ship could in time make repairs and re-enter the battle reducing his bounty or worse yet, be finished off by some other ship with a couple of shots later to claim the majority of the bounty even though Jack's squadron had done most of the work.

After 25 seconds with the
8 inch guns temperatures sliding into the red, the Battleship was a wreck from some Eight hundred 8 inch armor piercing yellowish white beams that had been pumped into it from close range. Jack smiled remembering the little torpedo ships he had tried the year before. The cost of the torpedo's to do that much damage would have been more than the cost of the Battleship.

Jack pulled up over the
tumbling hulk of what once had been a battleship as his flight again released a storm of missiles headed for the ships around them. As he lifted up on the trigger just long enough to point his Destroyer at another battleship, Jack glimpsed the mass of his own 5inch twin, 3inch quad and 30mm Gatling gun turrets firing streams out from his destroyer at the point defenses of the ships around them. Including the few smaller destroyers and cruisers not off chasing Tom's Battle Cruiser or his ghost tank decoys.

Jack's
flight approached the second targeted Battleship most of his resent torpedoes and missiles had been aimed at while C flight's 4 ships in two paired waves, strafed it from the stern dumping more torpedoes and missiles into it as well. The 8unleashed a good 10 to 15 seconds of mass destruction into the Battleship. The 8 destroyers pouring a good Eight hundred rounds into and taking it out of the fight for the day as well before sliding over it as the ships split up and started darting from side to side, up and down to avoid retaliatory fire from the other ships of the enemy fleet hitting them as they made their escape. Jack flicking a button on the control stick, strafed a Destroyer placing a good 3 second burst of some 48 of his low powered 8 inch rounds along with streams of 5 and 3 inch shells into it, leaving it a dead tumbling hulk in space so he did not have to worry about it firing at him as he passed. The 5s and 3s released from his control started helping turn a couple of cruisers they were passing between at medium range into junk as one of his flight's other Destroyers took each of them on. His forth Destroyer strafing another enemy Destroyer for several seconds before it blew up in front of it.

As
they finally ran out of range and the point defense guns stopped firing back at the enemy fleet, Jack turned the helm over to the pilot and moved back into the Command chair.

The Pilot smiled at Jack. "Good shooting Sir.
Too bad we don't have boarding parties.  It wouldn't take much to take most of the ships we hit once they fall behind the fleet. Be quite a haul." Sitting down in the pilot's chair and buckling in.

Jack though
t for a second and smiled. "Never gave that a thought Lieutenant but it sounds like a great idea. Why don't you see about designing an assault drop tank we could use to dump Platoons of marines onto the hulks like you said after the battle? Could be very profitable." Chuckling. "Wouldn't mind assaulting a battleship myself. Come to think of it, I met some marines back at the base who were interested in going along on raids on enemy transports and running after pirates. Maybe they would be interested in taking on a battleship or two. I, we, ah why don't you check into it when we get back to base." Jack suddenly recalled sighting a couple of fleet tankers trailing the enemy fleet. Could they take one of those and salve his drop tank problem without costing him credits.

"Than
ks sir. I won't let you down." The Pilot went back to checking his board and his maneuvering systems for damage and preparing the ship for the next attack run.

Hitting his comm Jack smiled. "Hey buddy. We just bagged 3 Battleships, 2 Battlecruisers, a couple of cruisers and a couple of destroyers with heavy damage to several other ships. How you doing?" Looking down at the Tactical screen as he zoomed a screen in on Tom's Battle Cruiser, his smile dropped into a frown. Tom's huge Battlecruiser was spewing reaction mass out of several places along its long hull but then that was why Jack had talked Tom into building it over 3,000 feet long, so the ship would have a lot of reaction mass tanks for the enemy to hit. Then instead of clustering the guns together in groups easy to support but easy to hit and knockout as well, like the current crop of Navy battleships, Tom's big twin barreled gun turrets were spread down the long hulls full length. Which was expensive in itself since each turret had to have their own generators and support equipment close by.  Though the empty or tanked space between them was a good replacement for a lot of heavy armor and a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to repair. Each time you doubled the thickness of armor you quadrupled the cost of repairs to it and the machinery inside it.

"Hey man
." Tom appeared on the Comm screen excited. "I got me a battleship and a couple of heavy cruisers but I was hit by several torpedoes and I have a pack of cruisers and destroyers chasing me. I think I should have stayed with the fleet even if they are well within range of the enemy battleships. After all, like you said, they can punch holes in my tanks all day long without doing any real damage to my ship. Sorry I did not believe you old buddy until these guys started punching holes in me. I just realized that even if they hit an engine or two I could have still kept up with the fleet for protection. At the closer range, I could have taken out half the enemy ships in no time at all with my big beautiful guns."

Jack
shook his head and smiled in exasperation. He loved his friend dearly but he just seemed so dense sometimes, taking forever to see what had been obvious to Jack for well over a year by then. With Tom not quit being able to grasp the seemingly simple basic tactics until he was damn good and ready no matter how frustrated Jack got. Making the same mistakes in battle over and over again. At least now he was starting to realize how to fight his ship right. Jack watched as Tom's ship took out another light cruiser with its stern's big guns but the ship was again hit by a torpedo up the stern as well as several 6 inch and 8 inch cruiser shells. 

The Battle Cruiser suddenly slowed as it lost power in one of its engines.
With no choice of out running the cruisers now. Jack watched Tom start yelling orders as he turned his ship hard around broadside on and brought all his guns to bear tripling his fire power on the small fleet chasing him and fired point blank at them knocking out both of the heavy cruisers in one broadside as his medium 8 inch guns started raking the destroyers. The enemy turned tail and started retreating. Leaving another spread of torpedoes running toward the Battlecruiser as they tried now to escape. Hoping the spread would buy them the time they needed. But the torpedoes were launched too far away and were too few even though they numbered a good hundred. With the Big ship now broadside on, its massive point defenses could easily take them out. The big guns concentrated on the cruisers and the enemy squadron started dying with each salvo now they were targeted by the ship's main gun director in the bow at point blank range. The Destroyers in turn started slowing and then literally disappearing under the massive withering fire power of 8inch, 5 inch and 3 inch guns. If Tom had deliberately run sucking in the enemy squadron, it would have been pure generous but Jack knew it was only desperation.