All Jack could do was shake his head with frustration as he looked at all the wasted time as he thought about the enemy currier getting away. Finally jerking the stick over as he reduced the throttles Jack lined up on the back of the fighter as he reduced the power of his fighter/bombers main guns and pulled the trigger only to have the shells blow the tail end off the boat. The huge shells telling him he had screwed up. Not realizing that the bombers guns were 3.1 inch (78mm) guns and not the 42 millimeter guns on the fighter he had originally sat in. Not that he did not know. It was just that he had not known he knew since he had no reason to believe the guns between the fighter and bomber were different. Then he realized that he had been told by Pan but it had not sunk in evidentially. Damn.
With the engines gone, the buzzard cone vanished as the damaged ship’s maneuvering thrusters started flaring trying to keep the ship nosed into the oncoming cloud particles. Though without the Buzzard coils concentrating the particles the fireball was a fraction of what it was before as the ship rapidly started slowing down.
Jack pulled the throttles back but with the ship still in a vacuum even with the cone sucking in particles through the engines, the other ship rapidly fell behind them. “Custern cut our Buzzard coils now.”
With jacks Fighter/bombers coils off his fighter quickly started slowing down as its leading edges heated up from friction. Adding drag brakes, they quickly caught up to the wobbling engineless fighter as the bubble of plasma started reducing with the reduction of velocity through the thin particles of the cloud.
After Jack caught up with the damaged fighter Custern turned the Buzzard coils back on putting both ships in a vacuum allowing communications between the two fighter/bomber boats.
“Our engines just blew up. We don’t have a clue why Captain.”
“Sorry about that but I shot them off. I had to stop you before all your armor burned off and you destroyed yourselves and your boat.”
“You shot my engines off Captain?” Said the shocked pilot.
“Yes. The shame is I found a way to adjust the Buzzard coils so the boat runs inside a vacuum free from the clouds drag, though the coils capturing particles still has some drag. We can make clear space in a couple of hours if I could only figure out some way to communicate through the damn ionized plasma shell around yours and the other fighter/bombers of the Squadron. Though most of them have already slowed down and will make clear space in about 11 yours now instead of destroying their boats trying to do it in 6 hours. You and 3 other boats though did not slow down and I cannot allow you to throw your lives away trying to carry out my impossible orders.”
“Captain.” The pilot looked pissed off even for what little he knew about the Gronks. “I am not stupid or suicidal. We were going to back off and slowdown in another two hours when we still had a quarter of our shields left and be through the cloud into clear space another 3 to 4 hours after that at a speed our shields could handle. We were not about to commit suicide sir.”
“Ok...” Jack felt more than a little foolish until he realized there was no way he could know what the pilot had planned. “Ok. So tell me Pilot Bogota? Do the other 3 boats still drilling their way through this cloud streaming shield particles behind them have the same plan as you or not? Careful what you answer. Their lives are in your hands. If you say yes and you are wrong, they will die before reaching clear space. Otherwise I am going to have to shoot their engines off too.”
The Gronk pilot’s expression suddenly changed. His mouth shut as he started thinking until he took a breath straitening up and said. “I know those crews and yes they are doing the same as I planned sir. They will make clear space in 4 to 5 hours sir.”
“Very well Mr. Bogoto, I will let them go and pray that you are right and they make it there in time to help me if the enemy does show up or is already out there.”
“You can really cross the rest of the cloud in that short a time?”
“Yes, with the Buzzard coils tuned right, the cloud does not exist. They should be sending a transport out to pick you up as soon as my message torpedo makes it back to base. Sorry again for blowing off your engines. I was only trying to damage them not destroy them. I will see you back at base Mr. Bogoto. Out.”
Minutes later Jack was streaking through the cloud at a pace that would have slagged any other ship, even a fully shielded Spider Battleship. Praying that he was not too late and that there was no currier ship out there now or would ever be. That the hundreds of fighters and bombers running the pathways deep in the cloud would find it and destroy it long before he had to deal with it alone against impossible odds. But somehow he knew that he was the one that would have to deal with it. That was just how his luck was running lately.
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The Ensign looked up as the trainer’s canopy was jerked open. She heard the announcement blaring across the compartment. “All pilots man your fighters and bombers. Check control for your assignments. This is not a drill. All Pilots man your fighters and bombers.”
The Gronk pilot that had been training her looked down with his hand still on the canopy. “Come Mate. We go to Glorious Battle.” He hit the quick release on her harness and jerked her up and out of the cockpit and past three cockpit Sims before her feet hit the deck. “Stay close and I will keep you safe little human. Just shoot at what I shoot at. Together we will clean space of all invaders.”
The public address system blared again. “Pilots will be briefed in the Cockpits.”
Looking around as she ran to keep up with her Gronk instructor. She could not believe what was happening. She had not even been able to pass the flight tests to qualify for Lieutenant. She kept freezing at critical moments trying to make sure she made no mistakes earning her an automatic failure each time even though she usually did the right thing when she did finally respond. That is if she was not already dead because of her hesitation. Now she was supposed to fly a Spider fighter into combat after less than an hour of instruction. This was beyond crazy.
Yet within minutes she was completely naked with the help of that stupid Gronk that would not take no for an answer and a strange creature running the suit pod the Gronk had thrown her in. While the machine did strange things to her body that included shoving things up her butt and urethra before dumping her out into where she had exactly 15 seconds to realize that she had a fully armored skin tight armored flight suit on before that stupid Gronk came out of the next pod and jerked her down the passageway and out into the hanger she had entered with Jack an hour before.
The hanger was packed with crewmen and fighters that were flying over her headed for open hatches in the overhead that were still blown wide open from the battle with air curtains across them. While bombers were lining up to be flung down launch tubes. She hardly had time to register much before the Gronk beside her flung her toward a fighter with a couple of Dwarfs and a tall stick with arms and legs crawling over it and threw her into the cockpit with amazing easy. The stick man or woman proceeded to bend over the edge of the cockpit and buckled her in tight before dropping down and started making motions and talking into a head set. She watched and listened for a few seconds before the short session in the simulator came back and she realized that she was supposed to do some things to get the fighter ready to fly.
Shaking her head she started following instructions she had just learned and the fighter started coming to life under her fingers. Still not believing what was happening.
Within minutes she was given the signal to hold by the stick figure in front of the fighter as a voice came into her helmet. “Follow me little human and we will make history together.”
She saw her training Gronk give her a sign she recognized now as a Gronk salute and then his fighter lifted off and headed up. The stick man in front of her gave her the sign to take off and she advanced the lift lever. The simulator after only an hour had taught her the basics that included not to over control and exactly what controls she needed, so now she smoothly followed
the fighter ahead of her up through the hatch in the overhead and out across the landing platform under the bottom shield deck A Company had killed so many berserkers on only weeks before. The platform still lined with transports that were in the middle of loading equipment and troops to her short puzzlement before having to pay attention to follow the fighter ahead of her as her squadron of half Gronks and half humans formed up. She caught a glimpse of a steady stream of bombers being thrown from the four sides of the ship across the surface of the bubble only a couple thousand feet away as her flight climbed up toward the open space around the bubble.
Then her helmet filled with briefing instructions from Combat Control and she almost lost it when she heard that Captain Turner was headed up through the cloud to intercept the currier if it made it out of the cloud before they could find it.
Fuming she waited until after assignments had been made as she accessed her tactical using her personal pad and codes to discover they were using a systematic search pattern starting from the captured Spider Battleship and working out. Punching in Combat Command, an irritated Commander came on the screen. The Ensign interrupted him before he could speak. “You need to close the door before the horse gets out of the barn Commander. My squadron of fighters can get there in 6 hours and block the exit while you take your time searching the labyrinth of passageways.”
“What do you mean you can reach the exit in 6 hours? It would take a ship 24 to 36 hours to make it through all the switchbacks and lost paths. Which is why we are doing it systematically.”
“These fighters are faster and more maneuverable than any ship or bomber in these narrow passageways and switch backs Commander. Not to mention that we have armor and were designed for operations in an atmosphere. Turn my squadron loose and follow us up with a squadron of bombers and if it is not already out the door, we will keep it in until you can order the whole fleet to catch up to us if it does happen to be there.”
“Captain Turner is already headed through the cloud out to close the door Ensign.”
“And what happens if Captain Turner runs into problems and does not make it there in time or needs back up if he finds something and all our fighters and bombers are still back half way to the entrance. Make sure the damn door is closed Commander, then you can take your time searching every nook and cranny for the damn currier. Besides what do you think your ass would be worth if you did not listen to my suggestions and the ship escaped?”
The Commander started to turn read and then stopped. “You are that damn monster boobed bitch with the stun gun that stunned me aren’t you. The one running around with the Captain all the time as some kind of guard or …. Take your squadron and get lost for all I care. Just make sure you plug that damn door or Captain Turner can kick your butt for a change. Fact is I hope you find the damn ship and it does more than just stuns your fat ass.” He smiled as he cut the connection and issued orders for just her squadron to head for the entrance to the passageways. He was not about to waste bombers following her. He would let Captain Turner ream her butt for disobeying his orders.
The Ensign did not wait for the orders to arrive as she threw her stick over, firewalled the throttle and said “Follow me. Change of orders. We are headed for the end of the passageways and the entry gate.” To the rest of the squadron and did not bother to look back to see if any of them followed.
The Ensign’s Gronk watched the Ensigns ship wing over and pull away. The New supreme Overseer Pan had charged the Ex-Wing leader with training all the humans and keeping an eye on and protecting that particular human. Evidentially the mate of the leader of the humans Captain Turner. A duty he had not relished but had been making the best of since he had expected his next mission was going to be getting torn apart as the target for the next Gronk combat training or God entertainment session. But then that had been a thousand years ago with him spending most of his time since in the hibernation pods between short times out to watch his fellow disgraced Gronks slaughtered in the arena. He had lucked out many times simply because of his smaller size, the bigger Combat Trooper Gronks had been picked for battle instead of him and the growing number of pilots with him. The number of disgraced pilots had grown so large that the Supreme Overseer Yeti after taking over from her mother, had stopped taking the pilots out of hibernation to even face the arena as a waste of time.
It came as quite a shock to be awakened this time to find out that the only Gronks left alive on the ship were the thousands of disgraced Gronks including his pilots and the invading Red Gronks of the Human Captain Turner. He had not even known that they were at war with the humans as their next conquering subjects. But then that had not mattered to him as he was offered freedom and a choice to join the humans fight or be sent back to the Gods sometime in the future along with several other choices in between. He had to laugh at all the choices as he realized that he had no choice at all but to join the humans. After watching thousands of dishonored Gronks die in the arena and even defenseless dishonorable deaths at the hands of Godofficers to chicken to even let their opponents carry weapons. Fighting and dying an honorable death in a cockpit he loved and missed was preferable. He had no allusions that the Humans could actually win but he knew he could take many Gronks and even a few God Officers with him.
Training the little human Ensign was a disappointment at first but he had been told that it would take time before the humans trusted them enough to let them actually fly missions. Being told to man a fighter after only teaching the little human the basics came as another surprise that he was more than happy to oblige. Deciding that the humans would turn out to be Ok after all.
The Gronk Wing leader had been hatched as a Wing leader with the Intelligence most Gronks did not possess and immediately saw the advantage of cutting the Godship off from escaping at the entrance to the passageways through the nebula clouds. Not that he had ever been exposed to the situation before and had not even fathomed the possibility of there being passageways through a nebula. But then he had mostly been trained in Conquering Star Systems and Worlds and new little about taking on Starships. But even he could see that it would take more than a fighter to stop one. Using the initiative that had gotten him disgraced in the first place, he ordered the 4 nearest bomber squadrons to follow them. If they were able to reach the gate ahead of the Godship they would then be in a perfect position to attack no matter where the Godship was found while most of the bombers scouring the passageways would be in no position to even catch them. Besides even he knew the fighters were better suited for scouting the passageways and issued orders for the rest of bombers not following him to congregate at several central positions on his map to wait for the ship to be found. The Gronk wing Commander’s opinion of the little human Ensign went up a notch though he did not know that her main reason for heading for the Gate was to get to the Captain as soon as possible and not cut off the Godship’s escape even if that was the result. The Wing Commander still could not understand how torpedoes designed for taking out planetary population centers without making it too hard to salvage the metal after most of the populations were dead could take out a Godship but he was willing to leave that to the Fleet Commander Captain Turner and the bomber pilots.
Commander Samuels back at fighter control on the hulk started pulling out his hair as he realized that he had lost control of the bombers as they started to head for several central points that would put them in positions to attack the ship wherever it was found. Grudgingly accepting that maybe that was a good idea, he started breaking the fighter squadrons up into sections to cover the passageways the bombes where no longer headed for. Then started trying to figure out who the hell was controlling and sending orders to the damn bombers. Deciding that it had to be that damn monster boobed Cunt. That did it. He was going to have to make her pay for disrespecting him yet again.
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After cutting through several clear open areas known as basins, inlets, lakes and a few narrow gaps they called rivers, Jack fi
nally broke free from the cloud into open space. His ship racing up from the wall of clouds between two high ridges and a finger towering far above him. He remembered the shape of the tall finger far ahead well as he started to approach the huge hole blasted in the side of the mountain forming the Eastern wall of the Valley rift.
Jack turned his Bomber around and started to decelerate. “Full sensor sweep Custern. Look out into deep space first just in case they beat us here.” Jack suddenly realized that in his hurry to get here he had forgotten to get the codes to access the remaining sensor torpedoes left behind during the opening stages of the battle months before. They would have come in damn handy right about then. Then just as suddenly he realized that he was in an enemy bomber the remaining torpedoes he had set up as mines would go after. Looking around trying to see if any torpedoes were already headed for them.
“Custern, sweep for incoming Republic torpedoes while you are at it. I left quite a few around here as mines.”
“Got them already on my screen Captain Turner. The sensor Torpedoes report that no ship has made it out of the cloud since you took out the two Battleships sir. And my I say I am surprised that you were able to kill them so easily. I did not believe the stories but know that I have seen the recordings…”
“90% of a battle is preparation Custern.” Jack’s main screen suddenly showed all the remaining torpedoes and sensors left active within a growing ring as the IFF signal propagated farther and farther out from the bomber and the AI’s responded updating the Bomber with their stored tactical information. Suddenly worried how Custern manage to come up with all the latest IFF and control codes for the Sensors and Torpedoes. “How did you get all the Codes Custern?”
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 18