Wolves at the Gate

by Shane Van Aulen

  Looking around he accessed several drawers finding clothing, Karduan data crystals and a ship pistol. Searching further he found their equivalent of a mini computer as well as a red clay patar that was tucked between her sleeping platform and the edge of the wall. The ship’s mistress either had two swords or just didn’t want to surrender this one.

  Curtis floated nearby, the scrounger watched in amazement as the young officer skillfully searched through the ship mistress’s belongings.

  “Did they teach you that in officer’s school?” he remarked.

  Mike turned towards him as the light from his helmet temporally blinded the petty officer.

  “Yes, how to gather enemy intelligence is a required course,” he said passing him some of the items to carry.

  Returning to their droids, they saw that they were making progress but it would still be a long night. Curtis was about to suggest going to the shuttle and catching some sleep when his young and eager captain headed back into the corridor and back towards the central access tube.

  “Sir, where are you going?” he called kicking off a wall and propelling himself after him.

  “Down,” was his one-word answer as he disappeared through the open hatch and into the tube.

  Greg Curtis wanted to say something inappropriate but their comm. links were still open. Instead, he followed him into the access tube and down through the ship.

  Several decks down they stopped and managed to get that level’s access hatch open. Once more entering a pitch-black corridor they floated down the right hallway reaching an air-locked door.

  Lt. Collins had brought along their portable generator and hooked it up, sending power into the door until it became operational. Cracking the airlock, they opened it up and saw that it was the destroyer’s shuttle bay.

  “Yes!” Mike exclaimed as he floated inside and their helmet lights illuminated the bay. The bay was set up for two standard shuttles and to his relief, one of the shuttles was still there.

  “Mister Collins, what are we going to do with a Karduan shuttle?” Curtis asked as his officer activated the shuttle’s door. This time they didn’t have to send any power from their little generator as the shuttle’s batteries still held a charge.

  “Why Petty Officer Curtis, we are going to steal this shuttle,” he said and added, “the Goliad doesn't have a shuttle and this one will do nicely.”

  At that moment, Greg Curtis decided that he kind of liked this officer, you know as much as an enlisted man could like an officer.

  Mike pulled himself into the pilot’s seat and activated the startup sequence. In a few minutes, the shuttle’s engine came to life and the cabin filled with air, gravity and heat.

  “Sir, how are we going to get it back to the Mastodon?” the Petty Officer asked taking his helmet off and enjoying the environment of the cabin.

  “Well, If I can’t get the outer doors to open, I will blow their emergency catches and then take her up to our shuttle. I’ll then have to slave its controls to our cargo shuttle’s controls and then remote pilot it back to the repair ship,” he explained pretty sure that he could do it.

  “You make it sound easy,” Curtis said shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  Four rapid explosions in secession made him sit up and open his eyes in fear. Quickly closing his helmet, the scrounger started to panic.

  “What the hell was that?” he yelled.

  “Relax, I just blew the emergency catches,” Mike said as they could see out of the shuttle’s window that the outer bay doors were now floating away into space and the starlight from the outside was illuminating the once dark shuttle bay.

  Powering the thrusters, Mike took the shuttle out through the open bay doors. He then piloted the Karduan vessel up and around to where they had docked their shuttle. Docking at a secondary airlock that was on the same level but on the opposite side of their shuttle. They then relaxed for the next hour and a half as they let the droids continue to their work to free the Karduan turret.

  The next morning the various repair crews showed up to get back to work on the Goliad only to find a Karduan shuttle and a large Karduan particle turret sitting on the repair bay’s floor.

  Chief Schmidt just shook his head and headed back to his engine room for another round with the Bender drives.

  SCPO Wineburg made a face as if he was going to spit. He could just see from the repair deck that there was a half-dozen droids up on the frigate’s top side right where the missing particle turret’s opening was. From the look of it, they had been working to enlarge and reinforce the turret’s housing. Walking around the Kardie turret he was pretty sure that this was even larger than a light cruiser’s turret.

  Mike walked up behind him unnoticed.

  “Well Senior Chief, what do you think?” he asked figuratively pulling on the bull’s tail.

  Wineburg turned and looked at him and let out a sigh before he answered.

  “We’re going to have to install several more power relays and stress buffers to handle this thing,” he said giving into the fact that it was going to be installed with or without his help.

  “Great, it’s all yours,” Lt. Collins said just as he spotted Commander McClune coming into the bay with a team of his own.

  Mike saluted which the Commander quickly returned.

  “We should be able to get those missile pods installed by the end of the day. My people are all volunteers so don’t forget to thank them,” he said never breaking his stride as he headed towards the frigate.

  “Thank them, hell I’ll even buy them the first round,” Mike replied.

  Cmdr. McClune stopped in his tracks when he saw the shuttle and the turret.

  “I see you had a busy night,” he commented.

  “Yes sir, but I have a turret,” the young ship captain said with some justifiable pride.

  The space station commander and master engineer nodded understanding that it could and probably would work if it was installed right.

  “Mind, if I take a look at your plans,” he asked.

  Mike passed him his palm pad with Rufo’s plans for the light cruiser turret. He then had him switch files to the modifications that he proposed to do with the Kardie turret.

  McClune shook his head, “No, you still need to modify your power couplers to handle the great energy requirements. Let me get the pod installation started and I’ll give you a hand with that turret.”

  “Yes sir,” Collins answered as McClune walked off to get things going. He still had another day of work maybe two but they’d soon be ready to leave and to fight.

  Two days later they were almost done and were now preparing to leave. They still had to take on supplies, munitions and get a certain couple married. By mutual consent, the happy couple decide to get married on the repair deck with the finished Goliad as their backdrop. Everyone was there including the Mastodon’s repair crew and SCPO Wineburg, Commander McClune and his work team as well as the crew of the Goliad. Dawn had also invited her coworkers from the space station.

  The Chaplin from the station performed the services and then the party began. Food and drinks were provided by Lt. Collins and his chief scrounger. What they couldn’t convince someone to donate they passed the hat and bought. Mike had spent some of his back pay and almost emptied the station’s class six store of beer and wine.

  Despite the festive environment, everyone was off to bed by twenty-two hundred hours. Their young captain wanted to be outbound and to the gravity well before noon of the next day.

  Collins, Wineburg and McClune were the last to leave as several custodial robots entered the bay to clean up.

  “We couldn’t have done this without both of your help,” Mike said offering his hand one at a time for both men to shake.

  “It might still blow up,” SCPO Wineburg said only half in jest. He was nursing a bottle of beer as he looked up at the improved battle frigate with a slight grin of satisfaction.

  “Just go ki
ck some ass!” Commander McClune said slapping the young officer on the back. He sure that this determined Lt. Collins and his crew of misfits would do just that.

  “I’ll do my best,” Mike replied as the two older men left to find their way to their respective beds.

  Chapter Eight

  The ISS Goliad streaked across the system heading to the next gravity well. After six days of bending into systems, sometimes refueling and then moving to the next gravity well they had shaken out all of the bugs in the new fusion drives. Mike had to admit that their new in-system drives made the old frigate fast.

  He kept his new crew busy with work projects including ship maintenance, diagnostics, and battle drills. What he didn’t think of his Chief of Engineering did or his second in command, Ensign Pitt suggested.

  Twice along the way he stopped to blow up some rock asteroids or chunks of ice. He needed to test all of his ship’s guns especially the two new fusion turrets and the Karduan particle turret. These were a must test and he wanted to see their range as well as their destructive power. In both cases, he was not disappointed. The two corvette-sized fusion guns worked fine and surprised him in their range and power. These newer turrets were a substantial upgrade over the frigate’s old ones.

  The Karduan particle turret didn’t explode as some expected but the first few times they tried to fire it nothing happened. A diagnostic of the turret found nothing wrong which just made things worse as they started to wildly speculate as to what was malfunctioning.

  CPO Schmidt ended all of the debates and quickly barked out some orders to his people sending them in every direction to check relays and connections. It took three hours but they tracked it down to a poorly installed power coupler that wasn’t seated right. It sent out a signal telling them that it was functioning which had fooled everyone until they physically checked it.

  Once Schmidty gave him the green light, Mike ordered the particle turret to fire at fifty percent normal power. The particle turret opened up at a floating chunk of ice and rock blasting it into a million pieces. The second volley was at seventy-five percent which not only went further but forced the old frigate’s inertia buffers to kick in.

  Mike held off firing the particle cannon at full power after that. The Chief wanted him to wait until he could check the stress levels and see if he could add a few more safety measures before a hundred percent firing.

  By the time they reached the last system before bending into Ryu-Six and Starbase 24 they felt they were ready for another test firing. Again, Mike slowly had them raise the power of each new firing. Starting at seventy-five percent they were happy when there wasn’t a power feedback or energy ripple from the particle turret’s blast.

  Collins took a deep breath and signaled for a full power firing. He could have sworn he heard someone whispering a prayer as he said fire.

  The particle turret fired at a range further than they expected even for a light cruiser turret and it hit its distant target with ease. The ship shook for a moment but it wasn’t as bad as the first time they fired it at seventy-five percent before the Chief made some adjustments. Mike was smiling but CPO Schmidt wasn’t and promised to get the after shake out of the gun.

  His torpedo launchers, missile turrets, gauss cannons and missile pods he would test in battle as he could ill afford to fire them and waste his limited ordinance. For them, they would just have to trust their diagnostics.

  Bending into the Ryu-Six System they were greeted by two light cruisers and two upgraded frigates covering the Beta gravity well. This was an amazing improvement over what Commodore Essex had stationed at that well.

  “No 34th Attack Fleet just the 8th Defense Fleet,” Petty Officer Curtis announced from the space radar station.

  “I’m not all that surprised,” Mike commented from his captain’s chair.

  “Head towards the Starbase?” Jeremy Pitt asked from the helm.

  “Yes, and let’s open a comm. channel to the Shinano,” he instructed.

  A moment later Admiral Dupain appeared on their main viewer from the bridge of her auxiliary carrier.

  “Good to see you, Lieutenant,” she said with a very slight grin.

  “And you ma’am,” Mike replied.

  “Is that a Karduan particle turret I see,” Dupain commented with a little frown.

  “Yes, Ma’am, we had to do some inspired repairs and come up with some creative replacements,” Collins answered proud of the work that his crew had accomplished in such short time.

  “Are those missile pods?” she inquired her single eye looking down to the sensor reports coming across her captain’s chair’s built-in computer.

  Mike nodded and made a comment changing the subject, “I see I missed the departure of the 34th Attack Fleet.”

  “Yes, with a whimper, a snivel and a kick in the ass they finally left yesterday. A full three days behind schedule,” she said in disgust.

  The 8th Defense Fleet had arrived two days early just so the 34th could leave with plenty of time to spare.

  Admiral Dupain had immediately contacted Commodore Essex and told him he was relieved of his sentry duty. He was to take the 34th Attack Fleet and leave as soon as possible as per his orders from the Admiralty. His fleet needed to get to Austro Prime within fourteen days to link up with the Wolf Squadron.

  Essex casually acknowledged the orders and invited her to dine with him which she declined. She then requested his movement plan for his fleet’s line of advance which he agreed to send but didn’t have ready just yet.

  Janice Dupain didn’t like the sound of his answers but he still had time to get his shit together. She, on the other hand, moved quickly and deployed her fleet in defensive positions covering both gravity wells. A second line with her heavy ships was positioned behind her lead elements to the Alpha Well.

  None of her warships were far from a gravity well including her flagship the Shinano. Her two improved heavy cruisers, the ISS Castor and the ISS Pollux were positioned just ahead of her carrier, one to the starboard side and the other to her port side. They kind of looked like two big dogs protecting their master.

  Being so deployed meant a much longer shuttle ride to the Starbase but she wasn’t here to be comfortable, she was here to wage war. She then implemented the next part of her plan sending her minesweeper, the ISS Embattle into action to start setting up a minefield at the Alpha Well. It would take well over a month to get it in place but she had brought a whole transport ship full of mines just for this purpose. Later, she would find out that the Starbase had over a hundred mines in storage that had never been deployed.

  Many of her ship captains made a point of reporting into her that they had been contacted by ship captains and officers of the 34th Attack Fleet. They had all expressed their joy at having the 8th DF move up and join them. Some officers had even requested transfers to the 8th while others passed on formal complaints to be filed with her fleet’s JAG office. All in all, it didn’t sound like the 34th AF was being run all that smoothly.

  As an outsider monitoring ship movements and communication’s traffic, Admiral Dupain sat back, watched and listened but said nothing. It wasn’t her direct command and action on her part was not required at this time but she still sat, watched and listened.

  When Commodore Essex’s time had expired and he still hadn’t left the system to carry out his orders she gave him one more day. Several comm. link calls to his carrier, the Pallas and to Starbase 24 were taken but each time she was told that the Commodore and Admiral Yancy were in very important meetings and couldn’t be disturb.

  Having had enough of their run around she pulled the Shinano off the line, came about and headed to Starbase 24. The 34th Attack Fleet was gathered around the station in what seemed to be a haphazard manner. Pulling as close as they could to the orbiting fleet she then took a shuttle the rest of the way in.

  Dupain had several thoughts running through her mind as she closed on the starbase. If the enemy would have attacked most of
the 34th would have been in very bad positions. More than likely being so close to each other or docked to the starbase they would have likely run into each other in a panic to move out.

  Her other thoughts were about this brother and sister team. They were used to running the show and now they were being told to play ball and follow orders. Hell, they were probably thinking that they deserved medals for keeping this base secure and preserving their attack fleet. She thought they should have been shot for sitting on their asses while others died to defend this sector.

  Docking, she and her marine escort moved into the starbase where they were greeted by a smiling Lt. Linda Friar who tried to get her to rest in some quarters that had been reserved for her. Ordering the Flag Aide to take her to Essex and Yancy produced more excuse until Dupain had finally heard enough.

  She once more ordered the Dog Robber to take her to the base commander and the commodore or be arrested for failing to obey a direct order. She would then be taken by her marines and to Shinano’s brig to await her trial. Lt. Friar quickly complied and lead her through the starbase to the command level.

  Reaching Admiral Yancy’s office, Dupain walked through the area never slowing her pace as she and her squad of marines reached the base commander’s door. Approaching the door’s sensors, she halted her advance and looked to the yeoman secretary manning the outer desk.

  “Open this door!” she demanded her voice making even the marines grimace.

  The yeoman had been ordered not to open the door if she had shown up but instead to ask her to take a seat and wait. Looking at her face and her glaring brown eye, the yeoman decided to follow Dupain’s orders and she quickly touched the keypad that opened Admiral Yancy’s office door.

  Admiral Dupain raised her hand up signaling her marines to wait in the outer office area. Strolling inside Admiral Yancy’s office, she realized that she seemed to have interrupted their lunch. The Commodore and his half-sister, the Admiral, were sitting around a formal dining table that was in a room adjacent to her office. There were two white-coated stewards standing nearby who had been serving them their elegant lunch.