Craggy 2: Another Last Flight for Craggy (6 page)

Both young pilots knew it would fall on their shoulders to fly into battle against impossible odds, a final act of defiance as generations of young people had done before them. All they could do was to wait, and be vigilant.

C
ommander of Space Security, Lance Dillow, said, 'Captain Flare. I'm Putting Fawn with you for laser target practice.'

'Yes, Sir.'

'Buckle up, people. Breezy. Get us in space.'

'Sir. Landing and take off thrusters engaged. Stabilizing at one mile. Main thrusters engaged at one tenth power in three, two, one. Main thrusters engaged. Leaving Mars atmosphere in three, two, one seconds. Leaving Mars atmosphere, now.'

'Head off towards the asteroid belt. Stop at the nearest bunch of rocks.'

'Course computed.'

'Flare. While we are on our way, give Fawn a few lessons on the cannons. Top to bottom.'

'Sir. Fawn. Can I just call you that? Two Commander Dillow's on the same ship could fry my brain.'

'Fawn and Flare it is. Ok. Laser cannon.'

'The Eye has four. Short burst high energy pulses. Range, fifty thousand miles before losing effectiveness. I think you know from experience the damage they can do. The power for the lasers is directly generated from the plasma engine.'

Fawn said, 'So. If the engine gets knocked out, like when Rocky took out the one on my ship, I'm basically unarmed?'

'Pretty much. Enough residual energy to get off a couple of shots. Aim well in those circumstances.'

Dillow took that on board. 'And I do that how?'

'Point and shoot. The thing to do is just be in the ball park. There's a heat seeking tracking system that does the fine tuning. It can still be hit and miss if ships are moving at speed. Not only that, but if all four cannon were blasting away simultaneously, that would soon deplete the energy available.'

* * *

I
t wasn't necessary to go the millions of miles to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as enough waifs and strays had drifted over the billions of years to take pot-shots at. Lance decided to stay out of the firing bay, so as not to distract his daughter. The ship was brought to a halt by Breezy.

'Ok,' said Flare. 'That rock has no temperature above the surrounding space. That means, the heat seeking tracking isn't much use. The good news is, it is just sitting there, and not shooting back at us. Right. You have the image of the rock on the screen. The red concentric circles are the auto sights. Grab the trigger handles, both of them. Now, you need to get used to the feel of the movement of the cannon. Try it out.'

Fawn tried the controls. 'Wow. Where's the red rings gone?'

'Way off target. That gives you an idea of the sensitivity of the controls. Try and bring it around. There. See? Just coming on the screen now. Right and then down. Almost had it.
Feel
the controls.'

'You aren't a relation of Dixon Cragg, are you by any chance?'

'Craggy? No. But he taught me the most important lessons about ships I ever had.'

Fawn chuckled. 'That's him. Feel the ship. Feel the cannon.'

'It's the best advice I can give you. Easy. Easy. Now we have it. Centre the target. Gently pull both triggers.'

Fawn let off a few bursts of energy. Most shots missed, one clipped the rock, blasting chunks off it.

'Not too shabby,' said Flare. 'A little more sensitivity, and a lighter touch on the triggers.'

'Feel the cannon. Ok.'

Fawn centred the red circles on the rock and pulled the triggers. The laser burst smacked dead middle of the rock, splitting it into a thousand pieces.

'I hit the son of a bitch.'

'Nice shooting. There's hope for you yet. Breezy. Any more rocks around here?'

'A few hundred.'

'Good. Pick the nearest one and take us on a slow orbit. Fawn's about to take one out when we're moving.'

'Here we go,' said Breeze. 'Go kill a rock.'

The Eye did a slow orbit around the rock.

'That's kinda small,' said Fawn.

'What can I say?' said Flare. 'They don't make space rocks like they used to. Kill the damn rock.'

Fawn concentrated, now on a smaller target in a moving ship. Her first shots were wide of the target and the concentric red rings were all over the screen.

'Fawn...'

'Yeah. Feel the damn cannon.'

She got the rings back. Compensating for the speed and orbit of The Eye, she squeezed the twin triggers and obliterated the rock.

'Now that's what I'm talking about,' said Flare. 'Breezy. We hit a sitting duck. Now we need to be doing it at speed.'

'Say when,' said Breezy with a chuckle.

All Fawn Dillow could see were a whole bunch of rocks as they flashed by them. Getting a fix on them was close to impossible.

'Hey, Breezy.'

'Hey yourself, Fawn. Enemy ships will be moving a hell of a lot faster. You gonna kill some damn rocks?'

Dillow heard the chuckles of three experienced officers, itching to show her how it was done.

'Feel the cannon. I can do this.'

More by luck than judgement, she hit one. Breezy took them through a quarry load of space rock.

Flare said, 'You should get these blindfold.'

Fawn had only half seconds to aim and shoot. She was getting a fifty fifty strike rate. Encouraged by her improving performance, she upped her game. Just to tease her, the better she got, the faster Breeze flew The Eye. Another laser joined in and three more rocks were smashed.

Flare snapped. 'Titch. That was you, I'm guessing?'

'Sorry, Captain. Couldn't resist it.'

Lance Dillow took over. 'Okay. All four lasers fire at will. Breezy. Stop making it so easy for them.'

'Music to my ears, Commander. Let's see if you can keep up, people.'

It wasn't about aiming and shooting. It was about becoming one with their weapons, turning off the logical parts of their minds and using instinct and gut feeling. Fawn was up to a ninety percent hit rate. The others were ahead of her, but not by much. They were leaving a growing pile of dust in their wake.

'Ok, Breezy,' said Lance. 'Enough playtime for now. Take us home. Well done, shooters. You shot a bunch of rocks minding their own business. Think about things moving at high speed wanting to take
us
out. Next time, no pussy footing around. We do it like we mean it.'

'A
nd what time do you call this?'

'Tell her, Breezy,' said Dillow. 'We've been on target practice.'

'That's right, Skye. Dillow even got lucky a couple of times,' said Breeze.

'Hey. I was good. Eventually.'

Skye had heard enough. She was tired and felt like she didn't have back up. 'Now you two fine ladies listen to me. We don't build us a new injector, we got no ship, and you don't go playing space cowgirls. I need some serious input here, and I don't mean tomorrow.'

'Pull your head in,' said Breeze. 'We're here. And where are the engineers when we need them?'

'Pulling eighteen hour shifts, like everyone else. Building cannons and fitting them to freighters. More cannons for ground cover. All
we
gotta do is build a complete gas injector and fit it to that damn ship.'

Breeze said, 'anybody tell you how hot you look when you're pissed off?'

'You're not my type. Now get busy.'

* * *

M
ars Commander Tagg Potts couldn't remember the last time he slept more than four hours straight. If he wasn't doing that, he was doing this. Now he had a grim faced Armour Dillow in front of him.

'Problem?'

'We got determination. Not a lot else.'

'Training didn't go well?'

'Training went very well. For a rookie shooter, Fawn did good.'

Potts stifled a yawn and stretched. 'But?'

'Give me fifty ships armed to the teeth with two hundred top shooters, we might break even.'

Potts knew the giant to be a straight talker. He was telling it how it was.

'We might have nine, maybe ten ships, maybe a couple more, and as many shooters as we can train up.'

'Cannons?'

'A dozen. Perhaps a couple more.'

Dillow shook his head. 'Our shooters might be able to knock out a flea's eye from a thousand paces. We send out finest and bravest into battle, we'll be sending them on a suicide mission. We need more.'

Potts slammed his desk with his fist and eye-balled Dillow. 'We got no more, damn it.'

'Yeah. And that's the problem.'

'I get it. We're the damn underdog.'

Dillow turned and went to the door. 'I wish that were true. Tagg. We ain't even the under puppy.'

He left the office, his words leaving a bitter taste in Potts's mouth.

T
hree days and most of three nights later, the new injector was done. It was made of various alloys, scrap parts, bits and pieces, ceramics, plastic and marsillium, It was also made of so much more. Blood from cut fingers and grazed knuckles. Sweat from the heat of the welding guns. Tears from the frustration when things didn't go right and they had to pick themselves up off the floor and start again. They had pushed themselves beyond all known limits, but finally, it was done. It stood ten feet tall, had a diameter of five feet and weighed in at an impressive three tons.

'That,' admitted Skye Lewquarker, 'Is without doubt, the ugliest thing I ever built.'

Breeze said, 'If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with it.'

'Does it work is all I need to know,' said Dillow.

Skye said, 'That will have to wait until tomorrow. No way are we dragging this thing over to the ship and fitting it until we're rested.'

'Agreed,' said Dillow. 'I've a husband and a little girl somewhere, wondering where I am. I'll see you in the morning.'

* * *

'I
f you weren't home in another half hour, I'd have come and dragged you back here,' said Joel.

'Sorry. Shyne in bed?'

'Seven stories I had to tell her before she went to sleep.  Fawn. You need to spend some time with her.'

Fawn snapped, 'Don't you lecture me.'

'I wasn't. Look. I know how hard you're working on that ship, but you're not alone in that. I'm designing important modifications for the freighters to have laser cannons fitted. I got engineers and commanders screaming at me for my plans and I'm trying to look after our daughter at the same time.'

'I was hoping Misty could help out with Shyne for some of the time.'

'Misty's as busy as anyone else. She's full time as a volunteer at the childcare centre. Shyne was there for a few hours, but with me most of the time. We're all working ourselves into the ground.'

'I need a shower.' She paused before leaving the room. 'We're all worn out. Joel. I know it isn't easy, but we have to keep pushing ourselves. We have no choice.'

Joel nodded. 'I know. I suppose you're back at the ship tomorrow?'

'We're going to try to fit the new injector. If that works, we can try firing up the thrusters.'

Joel said, '
Then
you'll be learning to fly the ship. We'll never see you.'

Fawn knew that to be true. There was nothing left to say, so she went off for her much needed shower.

'T
hanks for the loan of the book, Richie.'

'You're welcome, Max. Enjoy it?'

Morgan nodded. 'Pretty good. It passed away a couple of hours. Not too bored are you?'

'I'll be glad to be busy on Moon.'

'We're lucky we are fairly close at the moment. Just another twenty days to go, there about.'

Richie said, 'At least there's plenty of helium three on Moon.'

'How exactly is it extracted?'

'Ah. It's an interesting process. The helium has been collecting on Moon's surface from the Sun for billions of years. Some areas richer than others. Our facility is in a rich zone, with about twenty five parts per billion of helium.'

'That doesn't sound like much.'

'Pretty rich compared to many planets, like Mars, for instance. We can get enough energy from Moon for our use for thousands of years.'

'That's reassuring.'

Richie said, 'It'll keep you flying all your life. Anyway, once the hydrogen, helium, carbon and nitrogen in the soil are extracted by a combination of agitation and heat, cooling to near absolute zero provides sequential distillation. Then, at very low temperatures, helium-3 can be separated from ordinary helium by what we call the superleak process.'

'Sounds complicated. I always wanted to know where the fuel for the ships came from.'

Richie shrugged. 'I'll give you a guided tour of the plant once we have it up and running. The plant does all the clever stuff. Our job is mostly shovelling it up with a dozer, feeding the plant and collecting what we need out of the other end.'

'I'm sure it's more involved and responsible than that.'

Richie nodded. 'Maybe a little.'

'Right. Back to work. Catch you later.'

F
reddie Morcurry was roped in to transport the new injector to the ship. Skye insisted on sitting with him for the journey. Freddie took his time, suspecting the grief he'd get if he as much as scratched the payload. Finally, they were at the site, and Dillow and Breeze had opened up the back of the ship to gain access for fitting the injector. Stella was on board, still working on the computer, trying to get more familiar with the propulsion controls. She had made solid progress, but was nowhere near confident in firing up the big plasma engine when it was ready.

The plasma engine worked both the main thruster exhaust and also the smaller take off and landing exhausts, that lifted the ship off the ground, prior to the main exhaust being used to get the ship flying at speed. It was a balancing act to control the flows of the injector and the directions of the exhaust. And all this with a ship they had little knowledge of and using controls set up with a very foreign language.

'What could possibly go wrong?' Stella asked herself.

'Absolutely nothing,' said a voice behind her.

'Craggy. Hi. What a mission this has been.'