Battleship Destroyer (72 page)

Seconds later the last remaining enemy Battleship hulks ceased to exist as they became atoms as several balls hit along the length of each hulk within microseconds of each other.

The Captain looked on with her mouth open trying to comprehend what happened.

"The first swarm of Fusion Rocks avoided the Decoy boats Captain and are continuing around the cloud in an increasing higher orbit as they spread out. The second swarm is doing the same. Using their electric thrusters, they seem to be trying to create some kind of mine field, with some speeding up in fairly equal directions and some slowing down arching toward the enemy fleet coming back around." The Ensign continued to study a replay of the battle trying to understand what happened.  "Damn Captain.  That was done with stock weapons from the Rock sir?" The Ensign exclaimed still not believing what she could see."

"
One reason the enemy has not penetrated far into the cloud." Shaking her head as she frowned going back over the battle as well.  "Though we have never even dreamed of using them on such a scale before simply because it was impossible to predict where the enemy ship, or in this case ships would be as the enemy made random penetrations long enough in advance to get the little rocks up to the needed velocity to fusion. Jack just lured the enemy into massing their picket Battleships into a fleet and then into a predictable position where they could be easily gotten at. Then used The Rock's unused transports to deliver the weapons in mass while staying safe inside well mapped fingers sticking up from the cloud." The finger in question flew past the fleet in a blink. Or Vice Versa. "Damn, I was looking forward to finding out something about these monsters." Turning to Jack.  "Next on your weapons list Mr. Turner. See if you can make the Fusion Rocks stealthy and maybe use them as a torpedo warhead, if you can get them going fast enough."

The Captain
turned around and shook her head wondering why Jack did not answer her. "But what the hell are we doing this deep inside the damn canyon now?" Then she noticed the fleet screen showing that one of the fleet ships had been destroyed.  "What the hell?"

The second damaged sh
ip straggling behind was close to the wall of the canyon as Jack realized that it was finally gaining ground and lifting away as the turn slackened. Finally taking a breath in relief. Suddenly a finger of the wall just seemed to reach out and envelop the ship for a fraction of a second. The ship became full of holes as it came out of the other side of the finger and then just fell away from the fleet into the wall as its engine gave out. The ship just disintegrated before their eyes.

The Captain's eyes followed the
bright spot in the canyon wall as the fleet left it behind sliding rapidly to the side. The wall arching around in a curve with the canyon turning away behind them as a strait canyon opened up before them. Her eyes growing big she turned around to see the canyon straighten out into the distance as the fleet started pulling away from the wall and head for the opposite side to avoid the remainder of the shallow S curve. "Mr. Turner get us the hell out of this canyon now!"

"Yes sir. Gettin
g the hell out sir." Jack grimaced as he finally looked away from the spot on the wall far behind them. Suddenly dozens of transport ships slid out of the canyon wall ahead of them on a collision course.   The Dozen ships grew into 20 and then 30 as the fleet rapidly approached the spot on the canyon wall they were exiting from. Pulling up he watched more ships exit from the wall directly in the fleet’s new path higher on the canyon wall.

"Oh Shit!" Jack wanted to close his eyes know
ing that they could not miss this second fleet of transports exiting the cloud to use the canyon as a highway back closer to base. A route they had used from the base in order to get there in time to set the trap. Jack could only watch as they flew through the fleet expecting to die in one massive collision.

Swallowing Jack turned around and looked back the way they had come. The transport fleet was disappearing in the distance as the rim of the canyon approached. Relieved he started turning the fleet back to decelerating
aching them away from the canyon wall. His thoughts turning back to the problem of the last picket squadron. Not really believing the fleet had missed them all.

"Enemy Squadron 5 minutes away and closing." Came
Tactical's voice.

"I don’t' think they have seen us yet Captain." The Ensign said a couple seconds later.

Without thinking Jack reached over and hit battle formation Wolf 6 icon. "Weapons, Torpedoes, stealth, hunter killer, vector 360 mark 70, fire three rounds. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot." Hold all gun fire. Repeat hold all gunfire. "

The Captain t
urned. "Go to battle formation Zeee….  What the hell are you doing Mr. Turner?"

"Setting up to kill the enemy before they can kill us."

"Good idea. Weapons fire the fleet’s gun. Target the enemy ships."

"No!
Sir. Belay that order sir. If we fire before we are in the proper position; all they have to do is turn to face us and we are all dead." Jack continued to hit icons on the control consol. "Battle formation Wolf has our fleet divided into two arms to surround the enemy squadron so we can attack from both sides at once preventing the enemy from using their armor effectively against us."

Jack looked up at the screen with the enemy ships just hanging above them facing
toward where their fleet had just been destroyed as the bridge shuddered from firing the first salvo of torpedoes.

"Right now they are concentrati
ng on the boats they think are Battleships that just took out their fleet and trying to decide whether to attack or not. Giving us time to get into position to destroy them. If we fire a damn gun at them now, they will know we are here and take a whole bunch of us out before we can get into position to effectively fire on them.  Not to mention that we are severely limited in how many shots we can fire at them before our guns give out. Captain! We have to make every shot count." Another round of torpedoes launched. "We also have to waiting for our torpedoes to reach attack positions close to the enemy fleet as well."

Turning from the enemy
squadron closing above them to look at the Captain. "We have the time Captain, take advantage of it. At least wait until the enemy sees and starts to turn toward us before wasting our shots." The fleet split into two squadrons, each heading for a different side of the 5 enemy ships.  “And are at point blank range sir.”

The Captain looked from Jack up to the Squadron
now hanging off above the bow, close enough to see with her naked eye as they continued to close. "But they are close enough to scare the shit out of us. Weapons, track and lock targeting on the closest enemy ship control section. Wait for my command to fire."

"Locking on target designating as
Alpha now sir. The four remaining enemy ships, close too far, designating as Bravo, Charley, Dog and Echo. Sir."

The two squadrons continued to rise
arcing toward the squadron as the long slow seconds ticked by.

The Enemy suddenly started firing long range at the boats that still were registering as ships on the screens.

"Captain!" Came the excited shout from the weapons officer. "They are firing their guns sir. Permission to fire back sir."

"No. not yet lieutenant. They are firing at our boats at
very long range. Just hold your fire until I give you the command." The two squadrons where approaching from the rear quarter of the enemy ships with them some 70 degrees off the fleet's bow. "Weapons you may target the torpedo's now in position onto the enemy's stern to attack their big guns and engines and then coordinate the fleet to fire on the enemy just before the first wave of torpedoes hit. Let's launch a 4th and 5th wave of torpedoes while you are at it. Target 1st squadron's guns on target Alpha and 2nd squadron's on Bravo."

The nose of the ship shuddered as a
nother spread of torpedoes left their tubes. "Mr. Turner you may turn the squadron so all our guns can target the enemy. I can't believe they have not seen us yet. How can they miss us being this close?"

"Captain 10 seconds to torpedo impact.  Firing guns in 4, 3."

"Admiral to fleet. Good luck, give them hell."

"Fire! Fire! Fire
!"

"No. Not yet."
Jack shouted but too late.

The ship shuddered as all 12
guns fired at once. 108 guns of the rest of the 1st squadron fired at the same instant hitting the nearest ship with its ass toward them, targeting Alpha's equipment and command section. The other, 2nd squadron, fired its 90 guns at the ship closest to it, target Bravo. The stern sections of both ships seemed to disintegrate from the deluge of close point blank shots.

"Weapons split your next
salvo’s 70/30 between the next closest ship of each squadron and the odd one left, Target Echo." The guns and hulls of the 3 remaining enemy ships started turning as the torpedoes started hitting. Most of their explosive warheads seeming to bounce off the thick armored weapons and engines without doing any real damage while others disappeared inside the hull. Though some engines and guns did quit or take up orbits on their own for no obvious reason.

Jack turned to the
Captain.  "Sir. We hit them just before they were going to fire another salvo at the boats instead of just after. They have time to fire at us before we can recharge."

The whole bridge watched the enemy guns
of the remaining 3 ships rapidly slue around to point at the fleet much faster than they could turn their hulls.  With the enemy still half broadside to the two fleets, half their guns fired at one fleet and half at the other. Each half of each enemy ship targeting one ship in the fleet as the ends of the barrels lit up bright enough to hurt your eyes.

Jack turned around to look at the damage control section of the bridge and the row of screens on the upper bulkhead showing each of the
fleet’s ships. Several of them showing large holes and gashes to their hulls where beams had struck them. One ship was already broadside to the enemy with a dozen flame, gas and equipment spewing holes in the hull around the bow.

"
Captain!" The Comm officer tried to keep her excited voice calm. "Ships reporting heavy damage sir."

"Weapons
, target our torpedos on their targeting sensors and command decks." The Captain said as she glanced at the damage control screens. "Forget the main weapons and engines."

"Ok. Where are their command decks?"
The weapons officer said.

Jack could only sit and stare at the enemy ship. All his primeval
animal being wanted to bring the ship around and make a run for it. But his rational mind told him that it was too late for that. They had to stay and finish it fast before the enemy could fire again. He finally realized that he was whispering to himself. "Fire the damn guns already. How long does it take to recharge damn it.  Fire."

Most of t
he second wave of torpedoes hit the weapons again doing little damage.

Jack punched up the weapons
status on one of his side screens to show a slowly growing charging bar. With two Capacitors' to charge for each of the 11 guns instead of just one, it was taking twice as long to recharge as normal.  "Damn! Why didn’t I think of adding the generators from the hulk along with the capacitors?  With the Generator's dedicated to the guns they could have recharged them in a fraction of the time the rest of the fleet needed. Possible …."

The rest of the fleet still having the same amount of
capacitor's supplying half its guns. Did not require the extended recharge time and fired sending over 100 beams into both squadrons primary target battle cruisers and almost 100 into the odd target Echo Battle cruiser targeted by both squadrons. Jack looked sadly at their gun power meter still only half full.

Another salvo of torpedoes hit the enemy ships. This time
ignoring the enemy's weapons and interring deep into the enemy ships hulls before exploding. Though most of them hit targets Charley and Dog while ignoring Echo. A mistake by the weapons officers. The explosions worth a hundred tons of conventional old fashioned TNT explosives showed little out ward signs of doing any damage except for diminishing the close ranged self-defense weapons fire targeting other torpedoes.

The next salvo of torpedoes hit without
losing half their numbers. As the enemy ships finished turning to face the attacking enemy on one side or the other, Jack noticed that they were trying to position their ships so the armored decked hulls of each ship would protect the vulnerable sterns of each other. The odd ship target 5 (Echo) was trying to back up to put some distance between them. The original targeted ships were starting to show signs of movement as one or two of their guns turned around to line up on the Republic fleet.

Jack watched the gun power meter reach 90% when
the enemy ships fired again. Each of the 5 ships firing one or two guns instead of the 6 or 8 of their original broadsides.

"Weapons, fire another salvo of torpedoes." The Captain
stared grim faced at the enemy ships. "Target the base of the enemy fleet's gun towers on all 5 enemy ships."