With the decision regarding her hostage made, Carlisle quickly lashed Fahada as securely to a bench as she could in thirty seconds and, in an effort to confuse her pursuers, unlocked the door to the compartment again. After consulting the wrist computer schematic of the local area once more, she shoved up to the ceiling where she used the quantum knife to cut the ventilation grating loose. She pivoted the grating down and headed upwards into the ventilation shaft. She pulled the grating back up behind her and used the quantum knife to slice a strip of metal out of one of the braces inside the shaft. She then used the strip to secure the grating. She made her way up into the ventilation system, keeping the wrist comp schematic open the whole time to guide her way. In the nearly zero gravity of the spindle area, negotiating the ductwork was really pretty easy going. It was also possible for her to be very quiet. It would probably take the enemy some time to figure out where she had gone.
By then, with any luck, she should be safe.
Chapter 60.
Santana Nexus System, on route to the Nexus Station, January 13, 2599.
The four ships of the Junkyard Dogs Strike Force had come out of their microjump about a half-hour away from the Santana Nexus Station and, after regrouping, formed up to approach the Station. As they closed in on the docking areas, Kresge, who had remained on the bridge of the Beastie, was consulting with Captain Helmsford about what the Strike Force should do next. The tactical plot of the Station and the ships nearby showed Kresge most of the enemy warships were lined up in the docking area. Three of them were not.
"It looks like three of the enemy destroyers are standing guard," said Kresge. He pointed them out, "there, there and there... The other five are all in a nice neat row in the docking area. Good, it doesn’t look like any of them have been alerted yet."
"Have you thought about how we should handle this, Commander?" said Helmsford.
"I was waiting to see what we'd be up against," replied Kresge.
"I might have an idea," said Helmsford.
"We're making this up as we go," replied Kresge, "What have you got in mind?"
"How about we match up our three destroyers with the ones on guard," said Helmsford, "and we take on the other five with the Beastie?"
"That's a pretty tall order, Captain!"
"Maybe not, Commander," replied Helmsford. "Those other five destroyers are just sitting there all lined up perfectly. They aren't suspecting a thing, I don't know if we're going to have a better opportunity!"
Kresge looked at the tactical plot again and saw the neat, orderly row of five of the Sheik's revolutionary destroyers lined up side by side in the Military docking area.
"You're absolutely right, Captain," replied Kresge, "This is too good of an arrangement to pass up. Get me the Captains of our destroyers."
Within a minute, Kresge was addressing all three of the Junkyard Strike Force destroyer Captains. "I want our three destroyers to take on the three ships that are standing guard. The Beastie will handle the other five. Talk to me, tell me why this isn't going to work."
There was a short pause while the destroyer Captains considered the implications.
"Commander?" said Captain Nesbitt from the Asimov, "My tactical officer suggests that we'll have a much better chance of success if we take on those guard ships three on one instead of trying to match up toe to toe. As you can see, none of the enemy ships is in a very good position to cover the others. If we strike hard and fast we should be able to even the odds considerably in a very short time."
"An excellent suggestion, Captain Nesbitt, "Three on one it is. I'd take on the one closest to the station first."
"Aye, aye, Commander. Now what are you going to do?"
"We're going to turn the Beastie loose again!" replied Kresge.
"On the destroyers in the docking area?" asked Nesbitt.
"That's right, Captain, we're going to try a strafing run right down that line of parked destroyers!"
"With that weapon you might just be able to pull it off! Good hunting, Commander!"
"Same to you, Captain Nesbitt.
Kresge took a seat where he could keep an eye on the action without interfering with the operation of the ship.
Helmsford began barking orders.
"Weapons? Get that main battery online and prepare to charge up those capacitors!"
The Foul Beastie continued past the freight docking area and headed straight for the southern end of the station towards the docking area for the military ships. The hybrid ship proceeded for almost a minute before they were challenged.
"Unknown freighter? You are not authorized to be in this restricted area. You will return to the commercial end of the station immediately and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply will result in you being fired upon. Comply!"
Helmsford ignored the challenge. To avoid any chance of the enemy detecting their weapons, the Beastie had been running without any of the capacitors for the high-powered Bofors turret charged up.
"Hawkins?" Helmsford called down to engineering, "Get that number two reactor ready to charge capacitors!"
"Aye, aye Captain!" replied Hawkins, from down in engineering. To the crew manning the reactor he shouted, "Be bringin' number two reactor to one hundred and eight percent, if you please, Lads! Spritely now, but be keepin' your eyes on your readouts!"
The noise from the powerplant rose in intensity as the now at least marginally experienced crew kept a close eye on the cobbled together consoles of the prototype ship. So far, all readouts remained within normal limits. In the meantime the gun crew activated the motors that raised the turret to firing position.
"Charging port side capacitors, now," said Hawkins. The crew of the Beastie felt the massive powerplant surge six times in rapid succession and after only about four seconds, the entire complement of six capacitors for the port side projector were charged up. "Now we be chargin' the starboard side," shouted Hawkins above the noise of the straining powerplant."
"Keep her at a hundred and eight percent, Angus, we’re going to start shooting some bad guys right about now!" said the Captain of the Beastie.
Helmsford called out to the men in the turret, "Ready those projectors! We're going to roll the ship over so you've got a clear shot at every one of those destroyers while we make an overhead pass on them. Rolling the ship...Now! Start shooting as soon as you acquire a target!"
"Aye, aye, Sir!" came the reply.
As they approached the row of parked destroyers, the helmsman on the Beastie used a combination of control manipulations to execute a simple one hundred and eighty degree roll. At the same time, the gun crew instructed their targeting computers to bring the projectors into alignment with the row of targets. With the ship rolled over, the gun crew now had an unimpeded view of every one of the parked destroyers although, with the Beastie inverted above them, they all appeared to be overhead and upside down. Just as the first ship in line came into the sights of the gun captain, Helmsford gave the order to fire.
The ripping sound of the ultra-rapidfire projectors rattled the entire ship as the emplacement, again operating in extreme rapid fire mode, unleashed a torrent of pulse bolts that tore into the row of unsuspecting enemy ships, indiscriminately ripping out chunks of hull, weapons emplacements and whatever else they happened to encounter. Kresge watched in slack-jawed amazement at the almost incomprehensible amount of destruction the Beastie was dealing out as the powerful pulse beams strobed out and ripped viciously into the row of destroyers. At the rate the pulses were being generated and delivered, every single ship in the row had received at least eight to ten hits when the run was finished. Since none of the destroyers had had time or reason to activate their shields before the strafing began, the damage to each ship was extensive and debilitating.
Kresge took one look at the carnage created by the single pass and immediately decided that another run at them would be superfluous. The Beastie would join the other ships of their attacking fleet and finish up any resistance that r
emained.
Within the last hour, the enemy's Naval forces had gone from a cruiser and eight destroyers to only three undamaged destroyers remaining. These three destroyers were now outnumbered four to one and when facing either the Beastie or the Asimov in a ship to ship altercation, they were hopelessly outgunned.
Chapter 61.
Santana Nexus Station, somewhere in the tenth ring hub, January 13, 2599.
Tamara Carlisle pushed the ventilation grate downwards and shoved her body down out of the ductwork of the ventilation system. The pull of gravity generated by the station's spin this close to the central spindle was all but negligible. She was still in the ring ten hub area but her trip through the ventilator shaft had dropped her into a small compartment somewhere on the other side of the main corridor a goodly distance away from the prep room she had escaped into from the arena. Her wrist computer schematic indicated that this was a cargo storage area of some kind and therefore not likely to be occupied. In fact, the storage compartment she had emerged into was in an area of the hub that consisted of a whole series of such compartments and she was hoping that enemy personnel would be scarce, at least for a while.
She checked the schematic and found that she had made considerable progress towards the central spindle area of the ninth ring but that she still had a ways to go. She pushed down off from the stack of lashed down cargo containers that nearly filled the small compartment and opened the hatch to let herself out into the corridor outside. As indicated by the schematic, the corridor was lined with compartments similar to the one she had dropped into. She checked the schematic again headed down the corridor in the direction that led towards the ninth ring hub. After she had proceeded about forty meters, she came to a junction. Here she hesitated for a moment. The schematic indicated that there was a larger compartment just a short way ahead. She cautiously headed down the corridor. If she could get past the larger compartment, she would have only a short way to go to access another ventilation duct that looked like it would take her northward into the spindle area of the ninth ring!
She peeked around the corner into the larger compartment area and was relieved to find that there were no enemy soldiers in the area. She headed carefully into the compartment and had made it about halfway across the space when someone called out to her in a raspy voice.
"Praise the the Lord! Perhaps my prayers have been answered. You are not one of the Sheik's soldiers, are you? Help me! Please! You must let me out of here!"
The voice was coming out of the shadows of a compartment that must have been used to house livestock for holding before transfer to a different ship before the animals were transported out to some more distant destination. The wall of the compartment that she was looking at was covered by a force curtain that allowed air to circulate but wouldn't allow an animal, or a human to pass through it. It was a very effective jail cell.
"Who's holding you here?" whispered Carlisle.
"A very evil and very intelligent man," said the voice. "He is the inventor of the Hyperzone damper and he has another device that he intends to use to destroy the Federation Navy."
"Destroy the Federation Navy? That's absurd! How?"
"He has a device that generates a huge hyperdrive jump zone that leads to nowhere. He told me that he intends to use it in the Federation Naval yards near Old Earth. He'll kill thousands of people and destroy most of the ships! You must let me out of here! I have to try and stop him!"
Carlisle didn't have the codes to deactivate the force curtain but she did still have the quantum knife she had taken from Fahada.
"Stand back!" she said.
A meter and a half away from the control pad for the force screen, she plunged the quantum knife into the wall of the compartment, creating a ragged, unpretty opening roughly a half meter square. She pushed the center of the "door" she had created into the cell. Then she helped the prisoner to get out into the central compartment. The man looked familiar...
Her heart fell when she realized who he was.
"Ezra Hellfire Brimstone!" she exclaimed. She went into a fighting posture, the quantum knife at the ready.
"Do I know you?" he asked. He looked her over. "Dark hair, short stature, Spacer tattoo. You must be Ensign Tamara Carlisle. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."
"It may be a pleasure for you, but I assure you I do not share the sentiment."
"You have no reason to trust me, Ensign Carlisle, but what I just told you about the two devices that were designed by this evil genius is true."
"Why do you care? I thought we were your enemies."
"The Sheik's people aren't what I thought they were. They told me that they only wished to create an environment where they could live the way their beliefs tell them to. Instead, they are bent on taking over this Quadrant and everything else they can get their hands on. My own people will be destroyed or assimilated before they're through. I must do what I can to stop them!"
"I should take you back to the Federation authorities with me, to face justice, but I'm afraid that trying to do so would just increase the chances of both of us getting caught. I am going back to join up with the Federation fighters in the ninth ring of the station. You do what you must, Brimstone, but you'll do it on your own!"
"That is all that I ask, little warrior," replied Brimstone. "I thank you for letting me out of that prison. Only now do I think I might be able to stop this madman!" He grew sober. "For what it's worth, Ensign, I am truly sorry for all the trouble I've caused."
"Save it for someone who cares!" she replied. "Farewell, Mr. Brimstone, may your God help you!"
The two of them left the compartment and each headed in their own direction. Carlisle negotiated a few more corridors, ducked into a side compartment when a knot of the Sheik's soldiers floated frantically by on their way to somewhere and finally found a spot where she could get back into the ventilation system and head northwards again.
Chapter 62.
Military spaceship docking area near the Santana Nexus Station, January 13, 2599.
As the Beastie lined up for her strafing run, the three destroyers of the Junkyard Strike force, Asimov, Nasr and Perseus, approached the Cobra, the closest of the Sheik's destroyer's to the Station. The three were deployed in a classic "line ahead" formation with Asimov leading, Perseus in the center position and Nasr bringing up the rear. The unsuspecting guard ship, distracted by the actions of the Beastie, did not seem to notice as the line of Junkyard ships used their classic formation to execute a classic maneuver: The three destroyers of the Junkyard Strike Force had "crossed their enemy's T." One of the most sought after advantages in modern or ancient naval warfare, crossing the enemy's T meant that all of the Federation ships could fire all of their main battery weapons -- their full broadsides -- at an enemy who could only respond with his front battery while facing multiple targets.
Just as the Beastie opened fire on the line of parked destroyers, the Perseus came into position directly in front of the Cobra. Captain Nesbitt, in the lead ship Asimov, gave the order to open fire. All three ships of the attacking force began firing all four of their main battery pulse cannons at the hapless Cobra. The crew of the Cobra, belatedly realizing the danger, had managed to get her shields up but it was a matter of too little, too late. The concentrated fire from all twelve of the main battery projectors of the Strike Force team was just too much for her to handle. Her shields went down and her front battery was destroyed within thirty seconds.
With Cobra in a desperate state, Nesbitt accepted her Captain's offer to surrender. Having seen the carnage dealt by the Beastie and the efficiency with which the three destroyers had taken out their companion, the Sheik's remaining two destroyers surrendered soon after.
***
Santana Nexus Station, ring ten hub area, January 13, 2599.
As the action out in the shipyards got underway, the men who had volunteered to monitor the release of the clamps that held the tenth ring onto the rest of the station had deployed to
their respective stations. The interior space of the station's spindle was partitioned off with stout bulkheads delineating each of the areas where the rings attached. Around the central portion of the spindle was another cylinder made up of the stacked sections of the ring hubs which had become an ever-lengthening central cylinder as each of the successive rings had been added to the station. The spindle rotated along with the rings as the station was spun for gravity. The only parts of the station that did not rotate were the two huge receiving airlocks with their "force curtain" doorways. The big military airlock had been the final addition to the south end of the station when the project was completed. That airlock would remain attached to the tenth ring after the ring was decoupled from the rest of the station.
"That strange-looking ship just attacked and ripped the hell out of five destroyers!" said Harley Earl, "Took the enemy totally by surprise! We are go to proceed with the separation! I repeat, we are go to proceed with the separation."
Earl was seated in the master control room for the entire station, located in the hub of the fifth ring. Across the compartment from him, Jeremy Fenster sat at the console that controlled the Station's thruster systems, waiting for the order from Earl to activate the system. Within the corridor next to the latch disc for the tenth ring, eight of Earl's observers dressed in spacesuits had deployed to their respective positions to monitor the unlatching of the clamps that held the tenth ring in place.
The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3) Page 36