The Comm officer turned to Jack as a mute icon appeared at the corner of the main screen. “Captain. Sir, Admiral. You are still on Comm. You have an open screen I have muted for a second. Do you want me to cut the Comm sir?”
Jack smiled at her and whispered. “No. Lieutenant. Keep it live.” Then after the mute icon disappeared. “Weapons, charge our big guns and activate torpedoes. Blow the first ship that fires at us out of creation and as many as you can on our way out.” Sitting back in the Command Chair Jack took a deep breath and slowly, nonchalantly said. “And now we wait to see if these ass holes are Republic friends or Spider fools trying to pull something over on us. Too bad we didn’t make it to the Station. It would have been fun knocking on their hatch and saying high while looking them in the eyes to see if they are human or not.”
“Mr. Cummings. What is the betting odds of them being friendly?”
“Aaa Admiral, since I can’t see how they got here with the engines they have, I would say they are 50 to 1.”
Jack was looking at the large rock still mostly hidden in the Cloud and suddenly Jack knew what the big monster was. “Would the Fact that the big rock is the lost Black Dwarf make the Odds any better?”
“Yes except that it still would have been easier for them to have hit one of the systems closer to the Battle. So it is still 35 to 1 Admiral. Not to mention that they have not told anyone yet that they are here that we know of after 6 months.”
“Well then let’s speculate as to why they hadn’t told anyone Number One.”
Shrugging his shoulders the First Officer turned from his Tactical board. “I now if I knew or suspected I had some kind of Spider Tracking beacon that the Republic could not detect on my ships, I would not make contact even if I had a couple of Spider Battleships keeping me from leaving, or even spy’s or plants aboard .”
“No, I don’t think they have a gun to their heads Number One, or they wouldn’t be going to all the effort to rebuild their ships but you may have something on the beacon. It may be that they suspect that one or several of the torpedoes that hit the fleet may have been beacons. Comms, after capturing a couple of Spider Battleships and the slaves they had crewing them that have helped us kill a couple dozen Spider Battleships so fare. Do you think we could find and even detect such a beacon hidden on the ships of the fleet?”
“No problem Admiral. Our knew Comms not only have the Spider frequencies we did not know even existed before capturing their ships but we have developed a few they don’t even know about and have their codes. We can read their emails like school kids and we would have picked up any transmissions and finding any sleepers is just a matter of looking for them.”
“So if that is not it, then what the hell could be their antisocial problem that turned them into hermits?”
“Actually Admiral it may not be TF-58’s fault or the Station’s.” Doctor, now Ensign Truitt, spoke up. “From what I know about what is going on back on Earth and The Rock. There is another possible problem. ”
Jack turned his chair around to face her.
“They may have tried to contact The Rock when they first got here but if they got ahold of Vice Admiral Ditzen or one of his or the Cabal cronies, he may have buried it for political reasons. From what we have found out so far, the Staging area was put on comm lockdown about the same time the Task Force arrived here. The political backers of the Ultra Liberal University educated Congressional appointed Admiral Bingamton thinks Politicians are smarter and better equipped to fight this war than the Admirals and Generals that have spent their lives in the military (and have fought wars for almost a thousand years since the Republic was founded). The President’s Democrat Party are trying to make Binghamton into a hero for saving half the fleet while the other half was destroyed. Saying that Admiral Spencer and Admiral Halsey, both Career Admirals, are the reason we lost so many ships and almost half a million crewmen when they disobeyed orders. They are trying to make Bingamton the Supreme Admiral’s Executive Aid, where he will have full control of staffing and promotions across the fleet. He has said at several political fund raising dinner talks over the years that he has a hit list of Career Admirals he is going to get rid of and replaced with Political Correct elite Democrat Party Admirals.”
Almost snorting in disgust. “If the public found out that Admiral Bingamton left Taskforce 58 to die while he ran when he could have saved them, he would no longer be a hero. Having the Remnants of Taskforce 58 show up with Admiral Spencer able to defend himself and prove that if Admiral Bingamton had stayed and fought using any smarts at all, they could have saved more of the fleet is the last thing the Cabal wants.” Looking at the tactical screen. “With the more maneuverable and faster Battleships of TF-50 as help, most of the fleet could have been saved by the looks of it.”
“So you think Vice Admiral Ditzen is just a political hack of Binghamton?”
“Why else would he cut off all comms to this Station which we knew about already and then use it for a black hole for everyone that gets in the political cabals way. Which we didn’t know about before this. I bet he has been sending more ships here than just our supply ships. It would explain why Admiral Halsey is so damn short on transports and no one has seen several admirals for months. I will even bet that those smaller rocks farther out are camouflaged Transports. Ours amongst them.”
“So you don’t think this is a trap?”
“Oh it is definitely a trap.”
Jack sat forward in the Command chair.
“But not by the Spiders. I don’t detect any signs of Apes or any of the other slave races having been on any of the ships. Nor can we find any of the traces we have detected in the past that the Spider engines and ships leave behind where ever they go. No. This trap is by the Democratic party’s Political Cabal that has already taken over Earths Government putting ¾’s of the population on the government welfare dole so they have to vote for the Democrats or fear losing their paychecks and health care with all the remaining industries and businesses run by the Government through the Unions and strict costly government permits and rules for everything including allowing the public to go anywhere or do anything outside their small size restricted apartments.”
Shaking her head as she grimaced. “When they decided Political Correctness was having to buy a Travel Permit on the Government Internet to leave your apartment to go to the store to buy food so the streets and supermarkets would not be crowded with restrictions on which businesses you could shop at. I decided it was time to get the hell off of Earth. Only as a Doctor I was not allowed to buy a permit to leave the City or the Planet. Because I even tried, I was assigned a politically correct friend to take me to meetings to talk about my politically incorrect Anti-social behavior.” The Doctor/new Medical Sensor Tech Officer growled as she continued. “I had to walk into the recruiting mall office with the clothes on my back to get away from the Black suited politically correct police that came to my office that always showed up when someone took a vacation to one of the Democrat Politically Correct retreats to make them enlightened. I almost didn’t make it out the back door as they were bullying their way through my receptionist with their search and arrest warrant. Then made it out of the alley before they blocked it off.”
Breathing hard she took a deep breath. “I didn’t think it could happen to me but since then I have been keeping up with the speeches and writings of these people including Old Admiral Binghamton. He even wrote a book on how he would take over the Fleets High Command and the Admiralty once they had a powerful enough President and he was famous enough to get him the appointment he needed. Now they are trying to take over The Rock so they can Profit from the War and spread Political Correctness and the Democrat Liberal Agenda to the rest of the Republic whether they want it or not. Even if they lose the War doing it by the looks of it.”
“Oh I am sure that the Liberal smarter than everyone else Academics that mostly run the Democrat Party are sure that all we have to do is be nice to the pour misu
nderstood Spider Gods. Order someone else to bend over letting them fuck us up the ass to show them how Enlightened we are to forgive them for slaughtering billions of humans that were not as Enlightened as they and everyone will get along splendidly and sing Cumby-Ya all night long around the campfire orgy. While the Academics teach the Spider Gods Political Correctness and how they should wipe their butts when they pee out of whatever orifice they pee out of for their own good while they take over their schools to teach their kids to be proper Communists.”
Jack could not help but laugh as he sat back in his chair. She sounded a lot like his Grandfather Pop back on the Turner Joy. It was just as boring back then but know he suddenly realized that maybe there was something to that political shit and it could start costing the lives of his crews. “Well then. The same people that are screwing us over are screwing over the 50 some ships that made it here from Task force 58 and their hundred thousand survivors as well then. Isn’t that a riot?”
“Actually Admiral. According to our new scanners, Task force 58 know consists of well over a quarter million people and a hundred plus ships. Though most of them have had the shit knocked out of them. A long way from the 200 that it started with.”
“Damn. That many? Then my hat is off to Admiral Spencer if he is still alive. Especially if he managed to save that damn many crewmen as well as that many ships before they ran out of Reaction Mass.” Shaking his head as he looked at the Tactical. “But that does not answer why they came here instead of heading for the nearest safe Starsystem or for that matter how the hell they got here with no fuel?”
The Navigator turned around and faced Jack. “Aaa. Admiral, I may have something on that. I have studied the long range tapes of Task Force 58 as it was torn apart by the Spider ships chasing it. It was out running the 3 Spider Battleship squadrons chasing them until ships started running out of reaction mass and then the whole TF seemed to slow down. We thought that they were just trying to conserve and stretch their reaction mass. Now it is obvious they were slowing down to fight the spider Battleships while they evacuated the ships running out of reaction mass while they remassed the ones they could. It looked to me also that when Task Force 58 slowed down the Spiders started trying to get around the fleet to cut them off knowing they had to head for a friendly system in their range and the Spider ships could then pick them off. Only Task Force 58 headed out into deep space which just happen to be in this general direction before the rest of the fleet in Task force 50 that did not have to worry about reaction mass, was out of sensor range. Everyone just took it for granted that the rest of TF 58 was eventually ran down by the spiders when they ran out of reaction mass. A belief confirmed when they saw ships blowing up in the void to far away to tell who they were.”
The Commander at the Navigation console smiled. “I ran some calculations and I think that the ships we see here are the number of ships one Dwarf could feed to out run the spiders and still drop below Warp speed (faster than light) and make it into a system. But they couldn’t make much of a course change. Not enough to turn and hit any of the systems between there and half way here. And once they came half way, why not just go all the way as fast as they were already going at that point. Basically they did what we did because they had no choice. I checked the Scans and they show particles from that same cold black nebula we almost hit. Only their hulks are still out gassing massive amounts of the particles from that nebula. They must have hit it head on. God only knows how they survived it unless they hit it going a lot slower than we did. And I agree with Ensign Truitt. If any Spider ship had hit that cloud even with their shields. We would be able to pick them up a light year away with our new scanners now we know to look for the traces even in this soup.”
“Praise the Lord! Finally something that makes sense and fits all the variables. But why the hell are those Bozo’s staying tight lipped now? Well then. I guess we wait.” Jack looked down at his wrist checking the time. “Shit. I need to get this info to Admiral Halsey now instead of waiting for these Bozos to get around to deciding to talk to us.” Jack jumped up and tapped the pilot on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs over his shoulder and waited for the pilot to vacate the cockpit. “Engineering, I hope you have those new Anti-Mass-coils tuned properly.” Jack said as he plopped down hitting the maneuvering alarm and started tapping on the board. “Comm drop a Comm buoy and keep a close watch for anything from these bozo’s if they ever get their heads out of their assess and decide to talk to us. I bet they are as starved as we are as long as they have been here even with our food stuffing their faces. Time to get us all some consumables. And the first step is talking to our only contact we can trust at The Rock. Hell our only contact anywhere outside of Gama 13 other than slime bucket Vice Admiral Ditzen.” Shaking his head. “Evidentially the only one these guys here have been able to talk to too since they are being so stuck up. They probably don’t know who to trust.”
Getting a big smile Jack checked the tactical screen for anything in their way and smiled as he slapped the Comm for the General Traffic Control channel at all Republic Stations as he turned on their IFF beacon. “Taskforce 58, give me a call when you want to talk, I have to go talk to my boss. Delta 7 traffic control, keep clear of my filed exit corridor for the next few seconds. I am going to see what this baby will do at full throttle. Out.”
Jack lifted the cover off the hard wired initiate button and said. “ONE!” Then slapped the big red button.
The ship vanished from the Staging area bubble as a small oblong dent appeared in the cloud on the opposite side from where the little destroyer had been sitting. The scoops clearing a hole for the Destroyer and then dumping the mass right back to fill the hole again after it passed not even leaving invisible shock waves rippling out through the cloud. With an acceleration of well over 14,000 Gees, no human eye could have seen it even start to move as it disappeared from one eye frame to the next one 60th of a second later. Even the Station’s sensors that were scanning the little ship at a thousand frames a second caught it in only the next frame half way across the open area. Then found several minutes later as they picked up the Destroyers IFF beacon still transmitting deep inside the cloud.
The Destroyer appeared stopped next to the Red Pepper several million miles away a few seconds later. The automatic defenses not even having the time to register it was coming before it was there. The Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system identifying it as friendly only a millisecond faster than the Point Defense system firing solution saving the destroyer from being targeted. Though it would have taken another half a second for the guns to get slaved on target and the missiles to be launched.
Jack made sure the transmit icon was still in the corner of the screen showing the comm buoy was functioning properly. “Red Pepper, I will be aboard as soon as we dock. Have the comm room cleared by the time I get there. I need to Phone Home. Oh and forget I said that.”
The Red Peppers First Officer smiled and said “By your Command Admiral.”
Jack got up and stepped over next to the Command Chair and waited facing the main screen. Yawning Jack suddenly frowned and turned to Ensign Truitt and said in a voice only she could hear. “You remember the God frequencies we were talking about earlier?” Getting her baffled node. “Have you checked them?”
“No sir. I thought we were just aaaa. Speculating.”
Rolling his eyes, a low growl escaped his throat. “Well, speculate no more and check them well. Look for even a trace and next time take the damn hint since you should have been doing it already.”
Frowning as Jack turned back to the main screen showing the Station surrounded by ship hulks, her fingers started flying over the console like she had been at it all her life.
A few seconds later the Comm Officer said. “Admiral Spencer on the Comm Admiral Turner.”
“About time. Admiral Halsey would not be happy if I could not tell him if his buddy Admiral Spencer was alive or not when I talk to him in a few minutes. And forget I said tha
t.”
Admiral Spencer appeared on the screen replacing the view of the station and the surrounding ships. “Excuse me for eavesdropping on the channel you left open while I had you checked out Captain Turner to make sure it is you. According to my last records and the Earth programing and News casts that are always bouncing around the Cloud. You are still a Captain. How does one get promoted skipping Commodore to Vice Admiral in only a few weeks unless Earth News about the Hero of The Cloud Battle with 23 confirmed Spider Battleships on his record is that out dated and wrong? It had you confirmed as Captain only a month ago with the awarding of the CMH.”
Jack frowned for a second as he got a look at how thin the Admiral looked. Touching the Doctors shoulder behind him she looked up and simply whispered as the Admiral continued to speak. “Looks like they have the same problem we have. He has lost more than just a lot of weight.”
“Ya I guess getting any supplies here is a bust.” Jack said out of the corner of his mouth as the admiral talked.
When the Admiral asked his question how he had become an Admiral, Jack smiled. “Well Admiral, You slap a couple of Spider Battleship Hulks together to create enough mass to qualify as a Basestation with a Vice Admirals billet so I could out rank a certain Vice Admiral Ditzen before he took command of a simple station and destroyed both the Battleship hulks I just happen to have sitting around and imprison and torcher my crew while executing them as enemies of The State while he steels the secrets of advanced weapons to give him and the people he works for an advantage to reinstate his Flag and take over The Rock.” Taking a deep breath as Jack smiled at the Admiral and then. “Now that was a mouth full but I think I got it all in.” Looking up. “Well most of it.”
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