by Rob Buckman
“Aye, sir.”
“Weapon - order all weapons to fire at any target of opportunity.”
“Janice - move to tactical and tell me what you see.” As if reading down a list in his head Mike went through the standard routine. “The rest of you get into battle armor - now!” That brought order to the bridge as people dashed for the suit lockers. Slowly the smoked cleared, and he could see how many more were ‘dead’ or ‘injured’. He lost four; two dead and two injured. The dead, he would worry about later and the moment someone came back in battle armor he ordered him or her to take care of the wounded. Just as he was about to go and climb into his armor, Janice sang out with more bad news.
“I have two raiders coming in from the other side of the convoy, sir, and we’ve lost six freighters so far.”
“High or low, relative to the center line of the convoy?”
“High, Sir.”
“Helm! - Bring us around and dive under the convoy - weapons, order all gun crew to close up and watch for target directly ahead.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” They both chorused. Naval tactics dictated he should go up and over the convoy and try to take the raiders head on.
Having used this tactic before, most raider Captain would know what the Royal Navy would do. By coming around the bottom he would have a slight advantage of surprise and the exposed underbelly of the raiders, or so he hoped. The helmsman took them on a dizzying spiral dive, skimming around a fat freighter and pulling her back up on the other side. It worked, both raiders were looking the wrong way, and completely unprepared for an attack from the lower quadrant. They gutted both ships with pulse cannon and the moment the second one went dead Mike ordered the helm to bring them around and back on station. In these close quarters, it was like a knife fight in a phone booth. It wasn’t a moment too soon, as another raider came in for the attack through the resulting hole in the defense line. The Captain must have thought he could take advantage of his absents, doubting the escort could disengage from the fight with the other raiders and get back into position in time.
He paid the price as a swarm of ship killing missiles slammed into his forward hull. After that, they got a short breather and Mike had a chance to clear the decks and climb into his battle armor. Damage control reported they’d sealed the hull breach and were working to get all main systems back on line. In all, the battle lasted three hours, with his ship taking additional hits. It didn’t matter, this was what they were here for and he gave as good as he got, killing five more raiders. By now, his bridge was a mess, with half the panels dead, their occupants now reported as ‘dead’ or ‘injured’, other panels just flickering. The rest of his ‘ship’ wasn’t in much better shape. Half his weapons were out of action, one of his dive units was completely gone, and over a third of his crew were dead or dying.
“Sir, I have three raiders coming right at us! Triangular formation.”
“Helm - plot a course through the center of the triangle - all remaining weapons to fire as they bear on target.”
It was a daring move, but it held the penalty of taking additional damage for the first few minutes. After that, the opposing ships couldn’t fire for fear of hitting their own. It worked, and much to his surprise, the damage was minimal and his ships continued firing. His shield help deflecting the missiles and particle beams into the opposite ships and that combined with his remaining firepower crippled all three ships in the process. He then made a fatal mistake. Just as they were about to break contact a transom beam overhead broke loose. Mike reacted instinctively when it looked as if it would land on Janice. He jumped from his seat, and in two quick strides grabbed Janice around the waist and pulled her out of harm’s way, but not before the beam slammed down on the shoulder and sent him crashing to the deck, stunned. For a critical few seconds, everyone’s attention was on him, and not the battle, even the helmsman. The next second the bridge plunged into total darkness as all the lights in the room went off. Everyone froze until the lights came on again and the steel door to the instructors viewing room opened.
“That’s all she wrote boys and girls. Your ship just crashing into the tail end of a raider and exploded. Congratulations, you are all dead!” They all groaned, looking at Mike.
That reaction had cost him the battle, and a dressing down from the senior instructor, who for some reason looked angry enough to strike him, but that was only the start. The beam had hit him hard, that, even with the battle armor on he knew he’d cracked something by the pain when he moved his arm. Getting out of his armor was sheer agony, but the real pain started when he walked through the door to their room.
"Just what the hell do you think you were doing in there today?" Janice yelled the moment he walked into their room.
“What do you mean?”
"You lost the battle, the crew and the ship just so you could play hero and rescue me!” Her green eyes blazing with anger and Mike was thankful of the room was relatively soundproof.
"Janice, I…” he started to say.
"Don't Janice me. I don't need your protection, or help from a bloody bog trotting, chauvinistic colonial moron!”
“Janice… I…”
“I'm more than capable of doing my job without your help, thank you very much!"
"Christ on a crutch woman, give it a rest.” He snapped at last. “You've had your bloody panties in a knot about me being a colonial ever since I got here. I'm sorry all right! I can’t help where I was born, or brought up. I see a woman in danger I react. So fucking sue me."
"You self centered son of a bitch!" she hissed.
He saw it coming, but with his damaged shoulder, his timing was off and her fist landed on his chin. Stars exploded in his head and he staggered back, his bad shoulder crashing into the wall. He gasped in pain and slid to the floor, waiting for the flashing lights in his head to stop spinning and the pain to subside before he tried standing up.
"So now we play the wounded warrior for the sympathy value!" she sneered. "I suppose I have to feel weepy and sorry for hitting you."
"Right now I don't give a damn what you do." He hissed between clenched teeth. Waiting for the room to stop spinning didn’t help, as the pain was worse. Mike climbed unsteadily to his feet, keeping the shoulder away from her, and opening the door, he walked out.
"Do you want to run home to mummy so she can kiss it better?" She asked in a syrupy voice, full of contempt.
Ignoring her, he walked down the hallway, hearing the door slam behind him.
Each step down the stair sent a dart of pain up his arm and across his back, and he gritted his teeth to hold back a gasp. He made it to the bottom without passing out, heading for the front door and the Medical Center. His foot touched the doormat and it automatically swung open. The pain made him forget how fast it closed and the left door caught him unprepared, hitting him on the injured shoulder. He exploded in blind rage and in total frustration kicked and ripped the offending door off its hinges and threw it out into the courtyard, narrowly missing someone walking passed.
"Just what the hell do you think you are doing cadet?” The man demanded as cadets rushed down the stair to find out what all the noise was about.
The red haze of berserk fury passed, and the pain returned even worse than before. Mike managed to take two faltering steps before his knees gave out and he crashed to the wet pavement.
"You! Call the Medical Center and get a stretcher here on the double!" the man yelled at one of the open mouth cadets.
"I'm all right, sir, I can make it."
"You stay right where you are son, and that's an order." Mike sank to the ground, glad he didn’t have to move any more. It was clear that Mike was injured, but from what he was not sure. Out of nowhere, Janice materialized, kneeling beside him in the rain.
"Oh my God, what did I do?" She asked in a trembling voice.
"Not you Janice, the damn beam."
"Oh shit, it hit you harder than you said, didn’t it?"
"Yes, but I didn’
t think it was that bad, and you were right, I should have concentrated on fighting the ship instead of playing the hero.” She kissed him them, and it didn’t matter anymore. Somewhere about that time, the hover stretcher arrived and through the red haze of pain, he felt hands lift him on. A moment later, he was on his way to the Medical Center, and the PO ordered everybody back to their quarters.
"This isn’t a bloody side show! You've all got studying to do, so get to it." After some murmuring, the cadets headed back to the room.
"Can I go to the Medical Center Petty Officer, Wilson?” Janice asked, hugging herself, shivering from cold, tears in her eyes.
"No. I'll take care of your roommate. You get back to your room and take a hot shower that’s an order.”
"Yes, sir.” She answered miserably, but complied with the order. Wilson watched her walk away, nodding to himself. She was one tough lady, and unlike so many others, she had compassion. That would make her one hell of a ship's Captain one day. Petty officer, Wilson followed the stretcher to the Medical Center to check on Mike, learning from the Doctor on duty that he had a dislocated shoulder and a possible fracture of the collarbone. That was clear from the mass of discoloration on Mike’s shoulder.
"Do you know how he received the injuries, Chief?"
"I think so. As stand in Captain, he’d just fought a fantastic three-hour battle with raider and completed a brilliant maneuver that would have saved his ships and many of the convoy. Then he made the stupid mistake of jumped under a falling beam he thought was going to hit one of his classmates. It wasn't, but he didn't know that. The safety cable would have stopped it from hitting her, but being a head taller than the average cadet, it smacked down on his shoulder instead."
"I see, but that doesn't explain how he managed to walk around so long with the pain he was in, it must have been excruciating."
"You've got me there, Doc.”
The dislocation was a relatively simple, but painful matter to fix, and after a quick twist and a gasp of pain, it was back in place. As a precaution, the Doctor strapped the arm across Mike’s chest to hold it in place for a day or two, releasing Mike back to his room with some pain pills and an order to return in three days. Mike managed to walk back to his room under his own power, and seeing the twisted mass of metal that was once a door lying in the courtyard, blushed with embarrassment. The other one hung drunkenly out of its frame, mute testimony to his strength, and he silently vowed to watch his temper in the future. That was what got him in trouble on Avalon in the first place. Opening the door, he walked into a dark room. Thinking that Janice was asleep, he carefully undressed and started to climb into bed, only to discover there was a body already in it. For a brief moment he wondered if he was in the right room.
"Are you mad at me?” Janice asked from the darkness.
"No, why should I be? You told the truth." His heart skipped a beat as she reached up and switched on the reading light and threw back the bed covers. She was completely naked. She then held out one of his bedroom slipper, almost like a peace offering.
"Then you should be. I had no right to insult you and call you names. You only did what you thought was right. So here."
"What's that for?" He asked.
"Are you sure you don't want to spank me?" she said, biting her lower lip.
Mike took the slipper, and held it for a moment, looking at her as she rolled over onto her stomach, presenting her bare bottom to him. Then he threw it onto the floor and undressed before switching the light off and climbing in bed beside her.
"I'll do it later, when I'm up to it." He whispered, just before he kissed her.
They made love then, or more correctly, she made love to him, as with his bandaged arm he could do little to assist. To say the Mike walked around with a happy smile on his face the next day would have been an understatement. More than once the instructors yelled at him for grinning so much. It got to the point where even Janice had to say something.
"Will you please wipe the ‘Cat eat the canary' smile off your face!" she hissed laughingly during a class.
"I'd say it was more the other way round.” He whispered back.
"MIKE!" She hissed an expression of outrage on her pixy face as she blushed.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I just can't help it, I'm happy."
"No! Really? I would never have guessed,” she huffed, but smiled.
"Would you two kindly tell the rest of the class what is so interesting? Maybe we'd all like to share in the pearls of wisdom you are dispensing." The elderly professor asked.
"Nothing, sir, nothing at all," Mike said, looking chagrined.
"Then I take you are familiar with the mistakes made by the Japanese in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Wake Island Campaign?” He asked in an acid tone.
"I'd rather not, sir. If you don't mind."
"Oh, but I do. It is apparent that you find your te’a tee’ with Cadet Fletcher of far greater interest to you than what I am trying to teach.” He stepped down from the podium and walked between the desks towards them.
“That would indicate that you are completely familiar with all the nuances of the particular battle, so please, dispense your wisdom to the class.” He waved his hand around airily to emphasis his point. “I'm sure we’d all benefit immensely from your insightful comments on the subject." There was no way out of it, and reluctantly Mike stood up and started to speak. "No, no, no. From the podium Cadet Gray, you will be able to enlighten us much more effectively from there.”
His attitude had started to piss Mike off, as he disliked pomposity at the best of time. Walking to the front, he stepped onto the podium and turned to face the class, finding most of them enjoying his discomfort, especially Heartmore. The professor sat at an empty desk, ready to poke holes and kibitz. Mike collected his thoughts, thinking back to the videos he had seen and what he had read on the battle.
"The Battle of the Coral Sea and Wake Island battle was the turning point of the War in the Pacific of the American’s, who, up until then hadn’t been doing very well.” He began, all the different points of view falling into place.
“In this one battle, the Japanese lost any chance they might have had of winning the war or neutralizing British and American interests in the Far East. Unlike the brilliant attack on Pearl Harbor, the errors began almost from the moment Admiral Yamamoto put his plan into action.” His fellow students didn’t have a problem staying awake now, and he saw more than one nod in agreement of his estimation.
“The first was a classic one, to which many military experts and historians have pointed out. Never, ever underestimate your enemy.” Mike warmed to the subject, seeing Janice smile.
“Yamamoto did. He underestimated the aircraft carrier strength of the Americans, thinking they only had two, possibly three at the most.” The professor was starting to look a little uncomfortable. "The first part of Yamamoto’s diversionary plan was to pull the US carrier fleet away from Pearl Harbor and tie it up in an engagement in the Corral Sea, but it failed. He lost one carrier, and had another one badly damaged.” The other cadets had stopped smiling, and started paying attention.
“One badly damaged American carrier race back to Pearl Harbor and amazingly was repaired, and put back to sea in three days.” Mike paused a moment, putting the battle into the correct sequence of events. In his mind’s eye, he could see the area and the different naval elements as they moved into position.
“Meanwhile, US Naval Intelligence had intercepted Japanese radio traffic and decoded it.” Now he had the class attention. “This message suggested that the American held Wake Island, the key to controlling the area, was the real target of the attack, but they couldn’t be sure.”
“To corroborate this they planted false information concerning a breakdown in the water desalination unit on the Island and by using an older Navy code they knew the Japanese had broken, thus managing to confirm Wake Island was the target.”
“Admiral Hawlsy then ordered the American ca
rrier fleet to rendezvous at point ‘Luck’ and begin a sweep of the area for the enemy, hoping to engage Yamamoto’s fleet in one decisive battle.” There was nothing new in what he was saying. It was all in the history books, just his delivery that kept their attention.
“At that time, Admiral Hawlsy had no way of knowing Yamamoto had dispatched ten submarines to act as a screen between the Hawaiian Islands and Wake, but the Japanese had no way of knowing that they arrived three days late and missed the US Fleet.” Now the professor was starting to get a little red around the ears. It was clear to him that Mike not only knew the text by heart, but had analyzed the battle.
"As an extra precaution, Admiral Yamamoto ordered a second diversionary fleet to sail to the Aleutian Island off the coast of Alaska and invade Kiska and take Dutch Harbor, hoping to draw off one of the carrier units.”