Halsey’s jaw dropped. He was not used to a temporary Vice Admiral, snot nosed kid giving him orders. But then this was not the average snot nosed kid by any means. Finally chuckling, Halsey twitched his head to the side and took a deep breath. “I have to admit since the Destroyers came back after failing to destroy that Battleship. I have not seen them out of their hangers. Something about saving reaction mass for the Battleships. But I don’t see how I can even get them transferred to me aaa, well aaa maybe as Coast Guard patrol Cutters to help keep an eye on transports in the shipping lanes. I will go talk to Supreme Admiral Eisenhower which is probably a waste of time let alone getting them to the Staging Station but I will give it a try. You sure about this enemy fleet? No scouts have seen hide nor hair of them.”
“Thanks Admiral Halsey and yes they are now spreading out around the Cloud about a light year out. It is as if they know our pickets are in a ring a half light year from the cloud which is troubling. Like they have someone on our inside or scouts already here. Would bet that they are planning to go around and cut our supply lines by taking as many transports as they can before we know they are there. As if they know we are low on Transports as well.” Jack watched the Lieutenant come out of the bedroom and stand just out of sight of the Admirals vision and waited. “I am going to get my damn food supply ships and then those Destroyers waiting for me at the Staging Station. Have the rest of the Destroyers there by the time I get there Sir. It will take about 6 hours to attach the Mass Scoop kits to the destroyers before we can leave. While there I should be able to get a Comm to you using normal channels hopefully and tell you where I am leaving the Mass Scoop kits that will make your old mass drive engined Transports tanker free in the Cloud at least. Turner out.” Jack started to hit the cut off icon on his desk as his thought turned elsewhere but the Admiral interrupted him.
“What the heck is this about Mass Scoops? I saw something about Mass Scoops in your latest report but it didn’t sound all that important so I have not taken the time to get into it.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “The most important thing to come along concerning travel in the Cloud for a hundred years and you slough it off as unimportant.” Shaking his head. “The Spiders have Gravimetric scoops on their fighters they use for ground attacks on planets that scoops up the planet’s atmosphere and compresses and converts it into mass for their engines giving them unlimited range in atmospheres. Our fighters don’t stand a chance when the enemy not only cannot (no matter how hard they push there fighters), run out of reaction mass and don’t carry more than the minimum needed to drop down to the planet making them tons lighter and smaller than ours. Not to mention their better blast cannons over our laser cannons.”
Taking a breath and thinking as a smile came to his face. “Though I do remember an old ground attack fighter that used a hyper velocity rail gun with a good range that was damn maneuverable with good armor protection and would probably do a damn fine job of taking on the spider fighters and bombers. You wouldn’t happen to know where they might be keeping the retired Thunderbolt fighters in storage at would you? That is if they have not been scrapped out already. I know the Spaceforce hated them no matter how many times they proved they were better than the more expensive and faster new fighters the powers that be kept insisting on trying to use for ground combat support each time they tried to junk them. It has always amazed me why the Space force kept an iron grip on the job of ground supporting the troops when that was the last thing they wanted to do. Being forced to go back kicking and screaming to ground support each time the troops started dying because they couldn’t be bothered to do it right. Then have to recall the old Thunderbolt out of storage to keep the troops alive after losing a lot of big expensive fighters that were supposed to do it better. Tell you what Admiral, Do you think you could send me the plans of those so I can start making my own?”
Jack smiled as he leaned forward turning the bolted down swivel chair to get out from under the table. “Got a million things to do Admiral before that enemy fleet shows up and kills half the transports you have left. Out.” Then hit the call end icon on the tables corner pad.
Chapter 20: The Trap
Jack walked up to the bomber as the Lieutenant started up the landing leg’s wheel well of the Bomber into the cockpit until she spotted Jack and stopped with a big grin spreading across her face. “Thought you were too busy to come down Admiral?” The Lieutenant’s bomber was one of 24 bombers that looked exactly like hers lined up down the side of the hanger lock. 24 fighters were lined up along the opposite side preparing to pair up and escort the bombers.
“I am, so I’m not really here.” Taking a deep breath as he grimaced trying to keep a smile on his face. “Remember this is just a recon mission down the cloud entry corridor to clear space. Just a recon mission. Nothing more. You run into anything at all, you turn your Butt around and head back and let us big boys take care of it if we have to. If they don’t see you and the corridor is in bad enough shape, they may not come in any farther and eventually go away. If we have to fight, this may turn into a battlefield as their reinforcement come in and we are not ready for a major battle yet. Especially if there are a bunch of transports at the Staging Station with empty mass tanks.” Taking a breath as he hugged her. “I mean it. New Home needs these supplies or people are going to start starving to death. The big guns on the Destroyers are untested and the crews are not trained to use them yet. We can’t afford a battle right now. We would be lucky to get any of the transports out before they are destroyed if a squadron of Spider Battleships happened to be around or are using them for bate. So no contact with the enemy. Period.” Jack backed up from her ear and let go of the hug. “Once we know what we are facing we can make plans, prepare the crews and come back where they least expect us.”
The Lieutenant smiled. “What a man won’t do just to get a hug and cop a feel. Anything else you want to chew me out about before I do it anyway? Just make sure you grab my ass this time hard enough for me to feel it through this armor.” Smiling she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips slipping her tongue for a quick tickle of his upper pallet before breaking off. “I love you too. Now got to go love, my crew Chief is waiting for me. See you when I get back.” Then disappeared up the ladder.
“I didn’t do anything… I didn’t cop a feel.” Jack stood there for a few seconds baffled and feeling like there should be something else he needed to do but knew that if he dragged her out of the Cockpit she would never forgive him.
Patting the side of the bombers fuselage. “You better damn well keep her safe or don’t come back.” Turning he headed for the control room at the side to watch her take off when his comm beeped. “Captain, massive ships signatures in the Staging Area. We are an hour out so we can’t tell what or who’s they are but there are a lot of them.”
‘Shit!’ Jack thought to himself. “Bridge, tell the Chevron G to come to a halt as soon and as quickly as possible using her maneuvering thrusters, kill all drives. All ships and escorts to follow suit maintaining formation and go to stealth running. Secure all emitters and go to General Quarters. I want a black hole in the cloud around us by the time I get to the bridge Number One.” Of all the contingencies he had Simm’d about, finding the enemy already in the Staging area was by far the worst. Well at least they had detected them a good hour out. He had not planned on detecting anything until they were only a half hour out but then he had planned on only finding at most a couple dozen friendly loaded Transports.
Admiral Halsey had said that they had not spotted any enemy ships since the battles he had destroyed the remnants of the enemy fleet 7 months ago. Could this be an enemy fleet that had snuck into the cloud before Admiral Hulsey’s Transport Fleet had arrived back here at the cloud? If so, they were screwed unless the corridor was in so bad a condition that the enemy had lost track of it. Or were they just waiting for the reinforcement fleet Jack had been tracking to arrive. That would explain why no one had gotten a comm from the Sta
ging Station for 6 months with someone taking it for granted that Ditzen had simply closed the Comms to the Station. It could be nothing else but the enemy with as many ships as his First Officer had hinted at. Shaking his head Jack decided he had better check things out himself as he tried to look through the elevator and hull of the ship toward the Staging area but knew it was useless with all their drives down unless they had massive leaks in at least one of their ships fusion cores. Then as soon as he looked for them, he saw several cores leaking massive amounts of energy which would not be possible without one hell of a lot of damage or simple terrible maintenance and he knew the slaves would not stand for equipment in that bad of shape unless it was simply impossible to repair. Which was impossible in itself with the on board factories each Spider Battleship had. Unless again the ships had been heavily damaged. But by who and when. He had been their when all the Spider Battleships he knew about had been destroyed.
Or at least he had thought they had been destroyed. Could he have somehow been mistaken? Come to think of it the Red Pepper had been at the bottom of a trench running for its life when several enemy ships were supposed to have been destroyed by a suicide bomb he had left with crewmen that were already dead from radiation poisoning but could still function. The Admiral had said that the bombs had taken out several Spider Battleships. Could the Admiral had been wrong and these were them?
Stepping out of the elevator Jack turned toward the Bridge only to have his Doctor/Steward grab him by the arm and jerk him around toward his cabin. “You are going to put on your Battlesuit before you get too busy.” Jack was surprised by the old woman’s strength. Or was it her knowing how to grab him by nerves in his arm where he couldn’t argue.
“But I…”
“But shit nothing. It will only take seconds now shut up and cooperate or it will take longer. As soon as Jack stepped through the hatch his suit was already out of the closet in its rack and ready to go. A marine weapon’s tech and an armorer were standing to the sides of it and between the three of them Jack was suited up checked out and out the hatch headed for the bridge 10 seconds later. Which meant he was 20 seconds later than if he had simply gone straight to the bridge. Still Jack cursed the delay. They could already be under the guns of the damn enemy Battleships and be dead and just not know about it yet.
Jack slammed threw the hatch and started issuing orders as his eyes went from screen to screen across the bridge. Forgetting to take a breath once in a while, so some of them came out as merely whispers but every order was heard, sending crewmen dashing or taping on their consoles. Again many of the orders were redundant but 10 years of training in The Game with crewmen popping in to replace Sim-crewmen without warning that may not have been up to speed, so orders not given each and every time needed, just meant lost battles and dead ships.
Finally the Red Pepper and the Squadron was at battle stations and registering as a black hole in the Cloud, the scout bombers and fighters were deployed with the enemy still an hour away, not seeming to have noticed and the ship could relax, a bit. Jack tapped his comm and whispered. “Next time Doctor Truitt, if GQ has been announced you will bring the damn suit to the bridge. I know it is my fuck up but that 20 seconds I was delayed could have cost lives. But thank you for you and your crew’s speed. It would have taken me 15 minutes on my own. I appreciate the help. That is all. No. Not all.” Jack was looking around the bridge with half the crew still in ship’s suits and not battle armor. “We are too short handed for the crew on duty when GQ was sounded to leave to get their Battlesuits. If the techs are still there have them start bringing up the duty crews suits from their cabins for them please. Start with the First Officer’s.”
A few minutes later the Steward/Doctor came onto the bridge with a cup of steaming hot tea and sat it down on the arm of Jack’s Command Chair. “Two sweeteners like you prefer Captain.”
Jack looked down at the cup. “I would have preferred you…” Jack started to growl.
A combat suit on a rack came sliding onto the Bridge stopping Jack’s comment half said. Another suit followed a few seconds later with a line of suits behind it. A pair of marines with each suit. The rest of the Bridge crew was suited up and ready a couple minutes later and the marines were gone except for the normal GQ guard at the hatch.
“Aaa .Thank you for the hot tea Doctor.” Jack took a sip as he stared at the screen with the long range sensor scan of the staging area showing a mixed up jumble that made no sense.
The Doctor smiled. “From now on anyone on the bridge not in a suit when GQ is sounded will have their suits delivered Captain if you approve.”
“Aaa Certainly Doctor. Thank you again. Noticing she was in a Battlesuit. If you like you may take a jump seat at the back of the bridge.” Jack stared trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The problem was it looked kind of familiar but nothing quite fit.
“No thank you Captain, I have too much to do.” And turned to leave.
“Ok Doctor… No. No. Not so fast Doctor.” Jack looked around the Bridge and found an empty console at the back of the bridge next to the damage control console under the damage control screen running across the back of bridge. “Doctor Truitt, take a seat at that standby console.” Jack pointed at the empty console. “I want you to go over the scans of the target area and anything the scouts and drones send back. I think I am seeing biologicals mixed in but everything is so out of whack. If I did not know better I would say we are looking at pieces of half a hundred ships or parts of ships damaged beyond recognition. Republic ships. But that does not make sense.” Turning back to the Doctor. “I want you to tell me if anyone is alive in that mess and more importantly, if they are human.” Then to Comms. “Get me General Meyers in the lead assault Transport.”
With the appearance of the General. “You may have to search some 50 Republic hulks for survivors in a couple of hours but you will have to be ready for a quick withdrawal if this turns out to be a trap. We are searching the area now for the enemy but haven’t found anything yet but a bunch of rocks with a lot of metals in them. No signs of life yet but we are still light minutes away. Keep an eye on tactical General, if we go in you may not have much warning. Sorry for the lack of time to plan. Get back to me when you have an idea what your plans are and how long it will take you to clear the hulks and the station I did not know was there but which we are not getting much from either. I don’t want to spend any longer in that mess than we have to. That is if we go. My gut keeps telling me to run but my stumach wants fed and if our supply transports are there, I want them. Turner out.”
Hitting the Comm again. “Flight, how long until we have eyes in the Staging area?”
“A half hour Captain… Admiral. We will have 3 passive Pebbles going through the Staging area. Though only one will try transmitting out. The other two will be from scouts shooting their recon Pebbles at each other across the inlet and will have to wait another 10 minutes until they are back in the cloud and recovered on the other sides to be transmitted up the chain of fighters if the first loner is destroyed. The First Pebble willdrift through and eventually down what is left of the passageway toward clear space if it survives long enough.” The Officer smiled at Jack. “If all three came up with nothing and you decided to risk it, I will have a large Pebbles already drifting through that can start transmitting active sensors for a better look while serving as bait to see if we get any response.
“Calling me Captain is fine Flight.” Turning to the rest of the Bridge. “Fact is people, Captain is preferable and easier while we are on the Red Pepper. Admiral is just a formality for a few weeks while we are on the damn Station.”
A half dozen smiles briefly appeared with. “Eye Cap.” Without interrupting their work.
Then the waiting started which Jack hated the most. Though he did start doing some rough Sims on one of his Command screens. Putting numbers of enemy ships at various locations and seeing what would happen if he did different things. The Sims made easier since he, or to be
more exact the squadron he was with as a bridge officer some 8 years before in The Game, had run into damn near the same circumstances. It had turned out to be a trap as they tried to recover valuable systems from the wreckage to upgrade their own ships. It had not ended well for the squadron. The trap had even been in a Nebula cloud similar to this but with plenty of rocks to hide behind. Slapping the Comm to flight. “Make sure you have the scouts and fighters check the backs sides of all those damn rocks in the cloud around the Staging area. I don’t want any surprises.”
Jack watched the scouts headed toward the access corridors staying well inside the cloud on the space side of the Staging area as well as deeper into the cloud. Something told him there had to be other ships in better condition around someplace. Probably a hell of a lot better condition. Then Jack turned his attention back to his Sims while glancing at the growing details coming in about the Staging area and the rocks around it as the scouts got closer. The 3 bombers concentrating on the staging area while their fighter escorts checked out the back sides of the large rocks. Jack right off noticed that the rocks seen through the curtain of cloud all seemed to be roughly about the same size except for one that was a monster that was about a couple miles long. Though as thick as the cloud was even that was a guess. Most looked like just the typical asteroid rocks that looked like several rocks that had slowly stacked together with each other over time. Jack remembered seeing as many as a dozen rocks lined up in a row like some kind of centipede while on an excursion with his Grandfather (Pop), a long time ago when he was 10 or 12. Wondering at the time how the hell they got stuck that away instead of balled up into a Simi loose round or oblong clump. Shaking his head he looked back at the rocks. Though again as thick as the cloud was with the fighters only getting close enough to make sure there was nothing hiding behind the rocks, it was hard to tell exact dimensions.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 77