The streamlined ship was built with a pair of small retractable atmosphere wings and a belly ram fuel scoop. It had a low profile and one heavy single-barrel particle cannon. A pair of forward torpedo launchers graced its bow and several dual fusion turrets and gauss cannons dotted its sides. Its engines were huge taking up most of the ship’s total mass. In its day, it was a formidable fast attack ship similar to the patrol torpedo boats of yesteryears.
This example of the Gunfighter Class of ships had taken numerous energy weapon and missile hits. Its ram scoop was completely gone, one of its atmosphere wings was missing and it had four heavy breeches to the hull. Its armored sides looked pockmarked as if gauss cannons had raked it at close range, perhaps by fighters or even a ship’s anti-missile guns.
Nearby its sister ship, the Sundance floated upside down in the low gravity of the expanse. It was also a sloop of war and was of the same design and class as the Cassidy.
The Sundance had taken a missile hit directly to its bow and the front of the ship looked like an old boxer whose nose had been smashed flat. Its torpedo tubes were crushed closed and two of its heavy-hitting fusion turrets had been blown clean off.
Moving their small shuttle along the sloop’s inverted top they passed under the bridge section. There, the shuttle’s crew could see that a direct hit to the sloop’s bridge had laid it open to space. Pausing their shuttle outside of the opening, Mike angled the ship’s lights directly into the hole. Inside they could see that the bridge crew had all been sucked out into space that is all except for their captain.
Sitting in the center seat was the body of Captain Samuel Leech, pirate and onetime officer of the Royal Navy of England. He was still strapped into his chair and though he had been preserved by the cold of space, he was not a pretty sight. Backing the Carronade away from the opening, they changed their course and headed to the distant freighter. Passing the rear of the sloop, they noted that the small ship’s shuttle bay was closed, and the engines of the Sundance appeared to be untouched.
Crossing towards the last vessel, the Carronade’s sensors picked up a debris field where it looked like several hundreds of ship fragments remained. It was a navigational hazard for the small landing craft and they gave it a wide berth rather than threading their way through it to the other side. This must have been the site of the majority of the fighting and now was a grim reminder of the cost. The size of junk ranged from fragments no bigger than a bullet to crushed hull sections bigger than their shuttle.
In atmosphere the EM-powered grav shuttle was very fast but in space it couldn’t compare to a fighter or to either the Pay Dirt or the Sky Train. The small craft was armored and had a gauss cannon for defense, which made it perfectly suited for ground or boarding operations. It also made it much safer for them if they had run into a piece of debris.
“Why aren’t we stopping to search the sloops?” Martin inquired, standing behind the pilot and copilot seats where Mike and Alister sat.
Collins didn’t even look up from his controls as he answered his friend’s question.
“We eventually will, I just want to do a survey on our way to the largest of the ships, the cargo freighter. After we check out its hull, we’ll board her and give her a thorough search before moving back to the sloops. That way we will be working our way back to the Wolf rather than away.
“In the meantime, you could go over the sensor readings of the sloops and debris field,” Dover instructed, standing up from the copilot’s seat and relinquishing the panel to his friend.
Martin sat down and quickly brought up the information from the shuttle’s sensor logs. “What am I looking for?”
“Anything we could use; safe docking ports or entrances to the sloops, useful wreckage, salvageable turrets, really anything that catches your eye.”
Leaving their friend so occupied, Mike guided the shuttle to the freighter. Like most civilian ships, it was huge compared to the sloops or even a frigate, being four times their size. It would have been large for its time but by the current standard, it was only a small to medium-sized cargo ship.
Mike was surprised to see that it hadn’t been refitted to a customary pirate profile. It lacked hull armor, had only minimal defensive turrets and appeared unchanged. It looked to be in fairly good shape, having taken only two visible hits one to its propulsion drives and the second to its forward hull. It had probably surrendered immediately, and without a system drives or a working power plant, it couldn’t travel to the star’s gravity well or polarize its hull to slip through and escape.
The ship’s name was the SS Joseph Priestly, which meant absolutely nothing to the shuttle’s crew. Mike imputed the name into his computer and found out that the ship was a registered cargo vessel belonging to the Agro Intergalactic Incorporated, a terra-forming business. It had been lost fifteen years ago to pirates and had been long since paid for by Lloyds of London Insurance Company. The name Joseph Priestly also came up as the name of an English chemist from the Eighteenth century who proved that growing plants restored oxygen to the air.
“The aft docking port behind the bridge seems to be a good bet,” Dover suggested, anxious to get onboard and look around.
Mike nodded and slowly brought the shuttle up to the docking port. “I’ll bet that we find a hold of dead plants,” he said with a smile, not having told the others of his research.
“Yeah right, more than likely a hold full of treasure or other valuables,” Mister Rabb called from the back.
Hitting his breaking thrusters, he activated the Carronades’ automatic docking magnets as the craft’s airlock locked onto the freighter’s port. A moment later, Gunny Masters was working the airlock’s controls transferring power to the freighter’s lock.
“We’re almost ready sir,” he reported, closing his space suit’s faceplate and then double checking Rabb and Watts’ seals.
“Are we all going to enter the ship?” Martin asked, looking up from the computer. He didn’t want to be left behind and the look in his eyes expressed that concern.
“Yes, we’ll all go,” he said, considering that the need to have someone stay with the shuttle was minimal. “Two man teams - Masters and Rabb will check the holds, Martin and Chief Watts will head for engineering. Dover and I will take the bridge and then head for crew quarters.”
“Everyone keep open comm. links, and no splitting up. We don’t know what unexploded ordnance or other hazards might be still lying around,” Masters reminded, sounding like a worried parent.
Taking a deep breath Mike entered the freighter’s airlock and waited as it depressurized. The ship was pitch black and they could only see by the lights from their space suits and the handheld lights they had brought along to illuminate their way.
The SS Joseph Priestly was in pretty much the condition that they thought upon first scanning her. The bridge was an empty mess, having been abandoned when the life support systems had gone down. Dover hooked up a portable power unit and extracted the ship’s reports from the bridge’s main computer. The systems on the bridge were nevertheless intact, yet lifeless. It seemed that the ship had only been in the pirate’s hands for a few days before the Confederation Navy came pouncing down on them.
The crew quarters had been ransacked and were a mess but again, they were in basically good condition. Full wardrobes and numerous personal belongings were evident in the crew quarters. The original crew had been forced to leave them behind, and subsequently for the pirates to later loot.
Mike was looking through the captain’s cabin when he received a call from Masters.
“Damn it! How did you know that the hold was full of plants?” he demanded, sounding rather irate.
Softly chuckling he opened up his link, “Just a lucky guess, what did you find?”
“C and D decks are full of farming machinery and E deck has a couple thousand individually packed and frozen trees.”
“I found them on the ship’s manifest,” Dover interjected, “they are transgeni
c maple and oak trees that have been engineered to absorb pollutions and mercury from the soil. They also have three times the oxygen production rate as normal trees.”
“A shame that they are dead,” Mike commented, wondering what colony planet had desperately needed them only to make due without them.
“No sir, they seem to be still in their vacuum-sealed packing crates,” Masters reported.
Mike looked to Dover, who shrugged as he gave his opinion, “They may be dormant in a winter hibernation or even frozen on purpose for transportation. We really won’t know until we unpack one and thaw it out.”
At that moment a second call came in, “Collins here, go ahead.”
“Sir, the power plant is shot, and the system drives are scrap metal. Without a new engine this ship isn’t going any where,” assistant engineer Chief Watts announced.
“Any good news?”
“The bender drives are in good shape and the machine shop is fully stocked as is the galley.”
“What about ship boats?”
The Gunny fielded this question, “Almost all of the escape pods are gone but there is still a four-man mini-shuttle in the lower bay.”
“Alright, everyone head back to the Carronade,” he ordered, anxious to leave the dead ship and move on to the waiting sloops.
The sloops turned out to be full of various surprises. The Sundance’s overturned attitude made exploring the ship difficult but not impossible. Though walking on the ceiling of the ship was sort of unnerving. The ship’s front section had taken heavy damage but her main superstructure and aft sections were relatively untouched. Chief Watts along with Mister Daley managed to get the engine’s power plant online and fired them into life.
They then activated the gravity plating and adjusted the attitude controls slowly righting the ship’s alignment. What made this even more amazing was that they managed this while upside down. Life support would take more time but it still made walking through the corridors that much easier.
Mike had almost wished that he had brought along some of his repair robots to start patching the ship’s ruptured hull. The bridge was still a mess and exposed to space, as were several forward sections. The Sundance’s computer, navigation, and helm were badly damaged and the ship had no auxiliary command center other than engineering.
The aft shuttle bay was empty having been used by the pirate crew to escape the final battle after Leech’s death. They were quickly captured by the task force, later placed on trial and found guilty. All of the surviving pirates were sent to a prison planet for their crimes.
The Sundance did have four remaining torpedoes in its forward launch bay. It also had a wide assortment of personal weapons scattered throughout its length, all of which were outdated compared to a gauss weapon. Mike immediately sent word for the Sky Train to be sent over, along with a work crew, to recover the torpedoes and transfer them to the Wolf.
Martin and Chief Watts volunteered to stay behind and wait for the Sky Train, while Collins and the rest of Carronade’s crew headed to the final sloop. It seemed to him that the pair was so absorbed with tinkering with the ship’s systems that they barely noticed them leave. Mike had to admit that he reluctantly left the sloop, wishing that he could have done more for her.
The Cassidy’s hull was in far worse shape than the Sundance’s but its bridge and engines were deemed as being only in need of minor repairs. Again, Mike wished for a dedicated engineering team and a dozen of his repair bots. He could already see both of the sloops being repaired and returned to service. The only problems were time, parts, and manpower, all of which they were desperately short of. Even if they did get the ships operational, there was the problem of crewing them as well as arming them.
This sloop’s torpedo bay turned out to be empty, having fired every shot in its attempt to escape capture. It was the shuttle bay that turned out to be the real prize. In place of a shuttle or landing craft, it had two more LN-23 Wasp star fighters. The small fighters appeared to be in rather good shape, having been captured in an earlier raid and repaired for pirate service. Captain Leech had been counting on them to help turn the tide of any future battles with the Confederation Navy. Unfortunately, the shuttle bay’s door had been fused shut by an energy beam hit before they could be launched into space.
Mike was sitting in the cockpit of one of the fighters, running a systems check when he called to the Star Wolf to report. He requested a damage control team along with five repair bots to be sent to the Cassidy to open the shuttle bay’s jammed doors. He knew that Cappilo would freak out when he saw the two Wasp fighters, and he wanted to be the one to show him.
After the Wolf had acknowledged his request, Commander Richards reminded him that his duty shift as bridge command officer was in less than an hour. It was highly recommended that he should immediately return to the cruiser. Mike swore loudly and was then asked by the Wolf to repeat his last transmission. He said a quickly affirmative and signaled that he was on his way.
Over the next six weeks, the Wolf’s crew worked hard to get her fit not only to fight but also to win. They had repaired both engines and ran shakedown simulations and maneuvers until the Padre finally deemed them healthy and sound. The hull armor was patched and sealed, leaving not even a crack exposed.
All of the missing turrets were finally restored from the supply of turrets they had stolen from the other Confederation ships back at Austro Prime. Fire control was repaired, and though Martin and his team of computer gurus tried their best, they just didn’t have the replacement parts to fix the ship’s damaged AI main computer.
The crew worked just as hard at training as they did at fixing the ship. Every duty shift started with basic physical training and ended with weapons training. The shifts ran battle simulations and cross-trained in stations. Mike and Hutton each had a shift and half of duty each day. This allowed training and crossover time with either Richards or Captain Hope.
Dover, Cappilo and Daley all had time as bridge officers. They smiled with some unspoken joke whenever they had to be under Collins’ command. Cappilo and Dover headed up the project of restoring the two damaged Wasp fighters and rebuilding the engines of the two Wasps from the Cassidy.
At the end of third week, the Wolf could boast at having four operational LN-23 Wasp star fighter and two SF-86 Saber star fighters. The sabers were twice as large, capable of taking heavy damage and fighting on. They were still faster than the older and rebuilt Wasps but the smaller fighters were more maneuverable and harder to hit.
The pirate’s base was also restored to life and the Blue male, Bre-Nan proved to be a hardworking member of the ground team. He cooked, cleaned and generally tried to help anyone who needed it. Several times, members of the crew who couldn’t bring themselves to work with the enemy turned him away. His unyielding persistence earned him the respect - if not the trust of most of the crew. To Mister Cappilo, it was like having a puppy dog that always wanted to be taken along. That was all right with him because he had grown up with six younger siblings, and he liked puppy dogs.
Missile refit was going along well until one day the team in charge had a missile cook off right in middle of the machine shop. As it started smoking Chief Watts rushed to get it down the hall before it could explode. At the end of the cavernous hallway was a dead end where it could do no harm. He had run about twenty steps from the machine shop when he tripped and fell to the ground. The smoking missile rolled across the floor, stopping at the feet of the Blue. Bre-Nan had been busy happily mopping the floor nearby, and upon seeing the danger; he quickly picked up the fuming missile.
Running it the rest of the way, he disappeared down the roughhewed corridor and was quickly followed by a muffled explosion. Everyone who witnessed it had thought for sure that the Blue had been blown to bits. Making their way down the dust filled hallway, they found the unconscious Karduan twenty meters from where he had thrown the defective missile.
Doc Beilor was in the base’s infirmary and had been
summoned at once. She arrived and treated him as best she could, having only a limited knowledge of Karduan anatomy. After several days of lying in the infirmary in a coma, the Blue finally opened his eyes to a room of cheering men. From that day on, he was one of the crew.
It only took two days before the two Austro security officers, Eric Wayne and Peter Bachman, came knocking on the captain’s office door. Gunny Masters, had known Bachman from his CCF days, and had accompanied them to the meeting. The two wanted to join up as they had both been navy men from their youths, and though they didn’t want to be back in the service, they also didn’t want to sit around and watch as other men fought this war for them.
Hope had been prepared for this and had planned on the guilt factor wearing them down until they came to see him. He already had temporary enlistment papers prepared for them, which allowed them to reenter the Confederation Forces until they reached a port where they could be safely dropped off. It allowed their time with the Wolf to be added to their service records from before the war, and would pay them at their former ranks of E-5.
It also stated that they had been drafted back into the service rather than volunteering. This clause was added to protect them from any retribution from the Austro Government after they returned home. Both men were assigned to gun crews even though they would have been better suited to security work. He thought that though they could be trusted they couldn’t be trusted that much so soon. What surprised Hope was that the security men were the first to come to him. He had been hoping that his old friend John Kirkland would have been the first to ask to join them.
Ken Usheiba, who had been still brooding over the loss of his customized shuttle, was the next to come knocking at Hope’s door. He had joined the service after college to become a fighter pilot, and though the service had trained him as a pilot, he just didn’t make the grade for fighters. Instead, he had been trained as a shuttle pilot and had never been anything more than a shuttle pilot.
The Log of the Gray Wolf (Star Wolf Squadron Book 1) Page 20