Battleship Destroyer (101 page)

"No spikes Captain and the assault shuttles
and Gun barrels are still attached. The cross connected Coils seem to be handling the load just fine with no reports of delayed coils. Though that additional alien power supply maybe helping there.

The ship reached the bottom of the trench and Jack started easing the ship over so the thrust was starting to slow them down instead of just changing their
course from straight down into the cloud to flying level at the bottom of the trench or canyon or crevice or whatever you wanted to call it. Being a space hound, planetary terms baffled him most of the time. Figuring he had it at 1200 Gee's already, he may as well as use it for a few seconds to get them farther away from the enemy fleet before dropping it back down to make the Admiral happy. The Bravo target was still up ahead around a bend and out of sight as was the enemy fleet up behind the corner of the canyon wall still approaching the hulk squadron with the barge posing as bait. With the ship finally running parallel to the bottom of the trench and the ships tail pointed in the direction they were going, he watched their velocity rapidly dropping. At that rate they would be slow enough to enter the cloud in days instead of weeks. But he knew he could not keep up that thrust for long.

A
s they approached the bend where Bravo would be able to see them, if it looked, he started backing off on the throttles as he dropped the ship down as close to the floor as possible without having to jump up over the occasional protrusion. By the time they reached the bend the ship had slowed to 300 Gees exactly. The ship started to slid out from the wall as the trench started turning to starboard and Jack eased the nose around pointed towards the wall curving away to thrust the ship around the bend staying as close as he dared. Needing to stay far enough out to see what he was turning into with time to dodge when needed.

As they came around the bend Jack eased back on the throttles so by the time the Bravo target came into sight he only had enough throttle on to keep them turning around the corner. As they
came out, he cut the throttles completely with the ship just above the floor and skimming the wall. Rotating the ship around he pointed it at the ship that was the most resent Bravo target and then tried to study it as he kept a close eye on the wall and floor ahead for possible obstructions just in case the automatic anti-collision system missed something. The wrecked nose with only the armored torpedo compartments left intact, provided plenty of structure to return radar and light waves. Jack was just hoping they would be too busy trying to survive or at least looking at what was about to kill them to look down and back at the little speck that was the Red Pepper sliding under them across the canyon.

"Weapons, you have guns locked and ready just in case we need them?"

"Captain, this is Gun Chief Benson. We bore-scoped the guns and found cracks in 4 of them. We are trying to weld the capacitors to the other barrels now but it is going to take a few minutes. We could fire them at normal charge Sir."

"Well they are not much good with a normal charge now are they Chief. Besides your crew are supposed to be in their acceleration bunks or chair
s not crawling all over the frigging guns. You are no good to me splattered all over the deck like road kill."

"Too much work to do Captain. We need these guns."

Jack frowned as he stared up at the spider ship. We may at that.

Though
both the  enemy and the Red Pepper were traveling at almost a hundred times the speed of light across the cloud, the only noticeable movement was the huge enemy ship drifted down at an angle strait across the trench toward the wall as they slowly caught up to it.

Jack kept glancing up at the ship as they approached and suddenly noticed it start to puke out boats that quickly accelerated away from the ship and
the approaching wall. Though he knew it was too late for them. Then the armored plates at the front popped off sailing out ahead of the ship toward the wall in a desperate effort to stop their head long plunge as an engine tried to start but quickly puked its guts out.

Jack found himself rooting for them to succeed. To survive as the Red Pepper drifted past,
far below and behind them down in the corner of the trench. It made him grimace when the first armored plate started hitting the edges of the trench and he found he could not take his eyes off of the disaster even though he knew something ahead of them could jump out and kill the Red Pepper and all aboard her. The tragedy was just too terrible not to watch. The first plate started glowing at the front edges hitting the cloud.  Wobbling it started to tumble and then the particles caught the flat side to push on and it flew out of the cloud hitting the second armored plate at an angle starting it spinning as it fell back to hit the ship. The spinning plate bounced back off the ship destroying it. Crushing the ships decks, engines and guns into a jumbled mass along with a few boats not fast enough to escape. 

The
first plate rebounding from its collision, entered the cloud tumbling in the opposite direction from the first time it hit the cloud. The dust particles hit the opposite flat side this time, sending it deeper into the cloud to jink around as it tried to fly in a different direction each time it changed sides in its tumble while it burned leaving trails of superhot particles behind it as it got deeper and deeper into the cloud going in one direction and then another. The second plate still spinning rebounded off the ship it had just destroyed, drifted back away from the ship and hit the cloud at a slight angle and skipped off shooting across the trench toward the opposite wall. Slag flying off of it as it spun. The plate hitting several life boats that could not get out of its way without slowing it down.

Shaking
his head Jack watched the jumbled hull enter the cloud and start sending flaming wreckage fanning out to end in large fusion fireball explosions. The life boats lucky enough not to have been hit before were desperately trying to accelerate away, entered the wall one by one to burn up like meteors in the night.

"Tracking target Bravo
across the canyon Captain." said tactical.

"No. Bra
vo's destroyed. You are tracking debris now." Jack looked back down the track of the ship and had to jerk the controls to miss the gradual rise in the canyon floor he had been too distracted to see. Turning the tail back around he brought the thrust back up to continue decelerating the ship as they approached the S curves and the Y where they would turn off away from the main canyon and safety. Out of sight of the enemy again the Gee meter quickly reached a thousand. He knew it would not make much difference at the speed they were traveling at but he wanted to shed as much velocity as he could before entering the S Curve ahead. Even a little bit could make the difference if something went wrong. He hoped anyway.

"Another
couple of minutes and we will be in the side trench and home free Ensign."  Jack said more to himself than the Ensign. After watching the enemy ship destroy itself in the cloud wall the last thing he wanted to do was take on that damn S turn. Looking over at the Nav map. It would be a lot easier if he just popped up over the S curve and back down into the side trench and stayed as far away from the trenches S curve as possible. But then glancing at the Tactical tank he knew that if he showed himself now, the enemy fleet of some 23 ships approaching the hulks would see him and give chase. At most only 8 hours or two behind him if they stopped trying to decelerate and decided to chase him instead. Much too close to stop and enter the cloud without them following him in and with that many against him the ship did not stand a chance.

Well maybe a little of a chance. But with a ship load of refugees there was a good chance he would get a bunch of them killed before
losing the enemy fleet if he even could. He was used to flying a Destroyer and not a damn armed transport. Even if it was a fast armed transport but then he was not allowed to use its new found speed to run away from them. Shaking his head he pushed the throttles up against the stop just to loose just a little bit more velocity before they got to the S.

"Tactical, how is our little Hulk trap going?"

"Ah. Just one minute Captain." The tactical Officer said.

"They
are 7 hours from the hulks sir." The Ensign said. "The boat’s Ensign is doing great sir. He is screaming his head off for help and playing the clips the Admiral sent in the boats cabin and not wired in so it sounds like the admiral is really there with the engine, life support, bangs, creaks and panicked crew noises in the back ground. He has even managed to get most of the nearby repeater stations on the lines and is giving an incredible amount of information about the ships and tactics he is observing. With about a hundred channels of sensors and video of both our campaigns on the enemy ship along with recordings of a lot of the alien material we acquired going out alongside his emergency beacon. Even if we don't make it, Earth should have quite a bit of information to work with." Turning from the console she shook her head with a frown. "If I did not know better I would swear he had been stranded when we were destroyed. I keep having to pinch myself to make sure that I really am still alive. Not to mention that we really stranded the Admiral."

"Ah.
Admirals are a dime a dozen, besides she was a wind bag anyway and was starting to be a real pain." Jack looked at the deck frowning.

"Ya, I will tell her that the next time I see her
.” The Ensign chuckled with tears running down her cheek.

Jack took a deep breath. The important point was that they were stuck doing the slalom
or the Ensign and his crew's lives would be wasted. The side trench entrance was starting to look damn small on the tactical for some reason the closer they got to it the smaller it looked. "As long as I approach it strait on it should be a synch. All I have to do is thread the needle." He said to himself as the ship started drifting up away from the canyon floor. He guided it back down without thinking. Feeling safer from the Spider fleet the closer he got to the floor.

With the throttle still on the forward maximum mechanical stop he started turning the ship to thrust around the first
shallow corner still using as much thrust as possible to slow their progress. He let the ship drift out from the inner corner of the turn deep toward the center trying to peer around the corner. Half way across and before they entered the sharp S turns he flipped the ship over to head for the inner corner of the first turn of the S not trying to make the turn. All he wanted to do was skim the inner edge of the turn and then head out across for the cutout in the turns outer wall that would be the entrance to the new trench he wanted to use.

As he skimmed up to the inner edge of the first sharp turn of the S
, he kept the ship in a gentle shallow turn so he could straighten out to cross the S turn trench perfectly lined up to enter the new trench.    Only after coming around and almost kissing the inner side of the turn Jack looked up to see only blank wall on the outer side of the S curved trench. 

Not believing what he could not see
, his eyes darted around in disbelief as the ship started across the trench headed for the blank solid looking wall. Then he saw the notch at the very top of the trench wall. Much too high to reach in such a narrow trench.

With a
flick of his hand the ship turned around to blast around the corner but the inside wall kept dropping away from the ship. "Engineering: All auxiliary power to the engines including the generators and lights. Only keep the Mag-coils powered." The lights went out as the Gee meter tapped up a little but it was not near enough. "Chief; Dump the gun Capacitors back to the engines!"

A Lieutenant Commander came on the screen. "What Captain? I have never heard of such a thing. How the hell
...”

"There is a bypass bus bar in the
bottom of the circuit breaker feed cabinet on each capacitor. Just slam them closed, one every 5 seconds. The turret's electrician should know about it. Just make sure they do not close two at once.  It just may be enough."

It
seemed like forever to Jack as the ship started coming around but not even close to fast enough as the fare wall started rushing at them. He kept checking the ships attitude to provide the most thrust to keep them off the quickly approaching wall but the thrust was not near enough. "Come on Lieutenant Commander. Sometime this century." Jack reached over and started using his fingers on the navigator’s board trying to see if he could plot a successful course out of the turn without hitting the wall but nothing he tried even came close. Then the navigator saw what he was doing started trying different courses himself in desperation.

And then the thrust of the engines suddenly jumped to 2,000 Gee's and Jack was
shoved down into his chair like an elephant had dropped on top of him. Just as Gravity was dropping back to normal the additional thrust burped and he was suddenly dumped on again and five seconds later again.

Jack smiled. The rate closing scale dropped cutting in half each time the elephant dropped on him making it easy to ignore
the pain on his chest dragging his arms down.

But even then the plot line had them still hitting the wall before the trench turned back around to resume
its original course. The ship would hit the wall just as they were starting to point back over into the trench itself instead of parallel with it as if they could take the short cut missing the second final S turn bend completely.