Trampship Wars 2

by L. D. Roberts

  Chapter 9: Death of the State

  97

  Supreme Admiral Ridgway looked up as Rear Admiral Edwards burst into his office unannounced, slapping off the holo map of the crossing systems and deployments taking up half the office without asking permission. “Damn it sir ! Y y ou have got to look out your window.” Admiral Ridgway fallowed the Vice Admiral's finger pointing out the screen window that suddenly appeared and had to take a breath. Not more than a couple hundred yards out his window sat what looked like an airtruck on its tail in midair. Big hunks gone from sections of the cockpit, fuselage, fan skirts and housings for the fans which were mostly missing. The pilot sitting (or laying) on his back hanging up out of the top in plain sight surrounded by ragged hanging sections of what was left of a cabin.

  The Vice Admiral came around his desk and punched in a file to start a video record on the offices side wall screen. It showed the air truck crossing the base as base control told it to turn around. The truck identified itself from the Star Queen and as it started to turn around something blew up in the right corner sending out blades and a cloud of debris that grew as the next fan was destroyed by shrapnel which knocked holes in the next fans destroying them. The truck started gyrating and rolling out of control as the pilot tried desperately to get some kind of control and then it started tumbling end over end. The Supreme Admiral of England 21 could only watch the doomed truck.

  The Admiral could not believe what he was watching as the doomed tumbling truck started climbing back into the air slowing each time it tumbled around with for its tail facing to face the ground again as it continued to lose its belly lift fans one after another each time they faced down as the truck tumbled faster and faster.

  On the fifth or sixth tumble the trailer broke free, flinging the doomed truck away from the trailer and it up into an arc . T and t he truck half suddenly started free falling again as it pancaked through the air having lost its tumble with the rapidly tumbling trailer dropping away. Th e i n the stern pair of thrust fans started r t otating back , turning to point toward the back of what was left of the truck and started pushing the truck as it arched faster towered the ground with the tails fins forcing the nose down as it fell in spite of the control panels trying to push the tail down . Then the rear fans suddenly started turning pushing the truck forward reversing it s slow rotation nose first toward the ground to slowly lifting the bow as it rapidly picked up speed.

  The Supreme Admiral could not help thinking that this time it would plunge strait into the ground except that the nose was slowly rising. Rising to damn slowly as the truck continued to drop and then something changed. The surviving lift fans started turning again only instead of lifting the ass again , they pushed the ass down and suddenly the truck was on its tail . The drive fans and now rapidly slowing its fall until it came within feet of the ground as it sailed across the scattered empty cargo and parking lots between the landing pits of the base and the office , hangers and storage b u ildings the Admiral’s office was amongst. The wrecked truck slowly started climbing back into the sky.

  Turning back around , the Supreme Admiral of the English State, to look out the window at the slowly weaving truck shakily sitting on its tail several hundred feet about 200 ft above the ground. The video It had taken all of about 15 seconds.

  And now that truck sat slowly dancing in the air outside the Admiral’s window screen with the smoking remains of the trailer a half mile away in the back ground between landing pits . Some of the holes looked wrong for explodi ng fans. Some looked like gun shots. . The Supreme Admiral could not believe it as he starred at the familiar pilot sitting in what was left of the cab. His face concentrating as his head turned around from side to side. His arms and hands continuously working to keep the truck flying. The pilot started talking to the young man sitting in the passenger seat, his smile as he kept glancing at him visibly easing the terror in the others face. The truck started drifting away to the north. Tapping the screen to fallow the truck he watched it drift away around and through the office buildings of the base toward a large parking lot for deployed servicemen ’s vehicles .

  “Where the hell is he going? Why isn’t he landing that thing before the remaining fans burn out. out? ” Rear Admiral Edwa rds shook his head.

  “How the hell do you expect him to land the hunk of junk with no belly fans?” Taking a brea th the Supreme Admiral Ridgway sadly continued . “I can’t believe they survived this long. Damn shame for them to die wh en they crash land the damn thing.

  And then two cars dropped out of the back of the truck hitting an empty section of the parking lot, one bouncing into the other as pieces flew in all directions in the lot. Without a load the truck started to climb before the pilot caught it. Then turning the truck in to in a wide circle , it came back around and down . H esitating next to the two demolished aircar’s the truck continued into the parking lot near the dropped cars and finely lightly touched down in front of a double row of parked cars. The stern of the truck stopped while the front section hesitated before continuing ed to slowly fall over across and down onto the parked cars. The cars acting as a giant cushion for the 50 foot long truck to fall onto instead of simply smacking down onto the hard concrete.

  As the dust settled and emergency vehicles started arriving, the two young men dropped from their seats and climbed out across the top of the untouched cars not flattened by the truck and down onto the concrete. One of them knelt down and kissed the ground as the other, the pilot, turned and looked at the wreckage of his truck .

  S The s upreme Admiral Ridgway turned to the Vice Admiral. “After watching this boy defeat 6 boats packed with weapons on his first fighter flight and then seeing the report on how he handled the boat lock clean up as well as the poison gas incident that killed over a hundred of the ship’s crew. The hold battle that we are still reaping benefits from. Not to mention the damn engine upgrade we find out now he is responsible for, that is worth a dozen ships and then the report the flight officer sent to me made of his skills and abilities with the fighter bombers yesterday morning at his ship’s pit and now this.”

  The Supreme Admiral of the English State took a deep breath as he turned and grabbed a single little slightly flattened round candy with a pair of squiggle d M ’s on the top and tossed it into his mouth. “I am having second thoughts about Captain Summers's cancelling her original plan to arm this Tramp Ship. Fact is , I have changed my mind about pulling the bomber s squadron, impounding the ship to jerk out its engines to test while sending the whole ship’s crew to the Tramp Camps as Captain Summers has suggested.” Looking back at the smoking ruins of the trailer in the distance. “Even if the original fighter swap was a gross mistake by an old program that may have been corrupted by this damn AI the kid has stumbled across. Which again points to exceptional abilities.” Taking a deep breath as he turned to the Rear Admiral that was his Aid-decamp.

  “ It is a shame Summers she has decided that because these tramps may have allowed someone to murder their AI and they get sentimental toward monuments to past losses, as well as wasting space and keeping useless junk like I manage to do in my garage. That they do not deserve the chance to try saving our planet even if they have no idea what the stakes are. Also the fact that they did not know or care that they had a billion credit AI and treated him as family.”

  Shaking his head as he watched the emergency crews take Tom and Mark away from the wreckage. "I want you to go down and get this kid and his ship a few of our old weapon s and I don’t care how you do it as long as it doesn't cost us anything. ” Looking off into the distance at a huge building that stretched out over a mile. “Hell , half the weapons we keep t r ying to sell to planets towar d the Empire’s core turn out to be forbidden because they are too damn advanced. While the old Empire tech weapons can be b uilt cheaper closer to them. Double Hell, it could take years to get the Empire’s approval to sell our advanced weapons and then making the deletions and changes they dema nd could take even mor
e years. ”

  Getting a devilish look on his fa ce. The Supreme Admiral smiled out the corner of his mouth with a twinkle in his eyes. “ No sense in letting them ro t on the damn shelves. Besides parliament has been yelling at me to export weapon to pa y for their development and put people to work. Sell them our best weapons using the bounty the kid had earned in stead of giving them a check on the parliament steps .” Narrowing his eyes. “With safeguards of course . You have Captain Summers to act as liaison since this is her plan originally and has developed a relationship with this kid and no she does not have a choice. I don’t' believe in suicide missions so make sure they are well armed." Though he knew armaments was not the key as they had sent plenty of well-armed military transport ships into the outback only to lose them.

  "Very well sir. But what about the military crewed Tramp ship you told her to assemble and train instead of sending a civilian crewed tramp?”

  “She can do both. How long can it take to sell give a few old weapons to the kid. After all with the torpedo bombers , the damn Air Captain managed to give them, they should not need much.”

  “It should not take long Admiral but the space bombers are not much good on the ground where half the transports are lost and they still need decent hull guns, those damn 5inch 38’s just won’t cut it even if we doubled them or you unl ess you want to issue a waiver to the Safety Commission which I do not recommend. The ship needs better backup defenses in case they get surprised or they lose the bombers through attrition.”

  “Well I said get them what they need didn’t I ? . ” The Supreme Admiral turned to look at the wreckage still framed in the screen.

  The Rear Admiral shook his head. “On another note, the forces I sent to the 3rd moon have taken possession of the remaining battleships and cruisers still in the airdocks that had not completed decommissioning but there was only a dozen of them and it will take weeks to get most of them space worthy again and crews out to them. I also have the complete list of the remaining modern Combat ships in storage mothballs in the crater that have not been scrapped.” The Rear Admiral frowned as he shook his head with disgust. “Out of well over 2,000 main line ships, all built over the last 10 years during the war, we have less than a hundred that are bigger than a destroyer left. Not even enough to replace the losses we have suffered in the French system sir. There also may be a problem with the ships as there are reports about ma n y some of them were being stripped of engines and weapons befo re they even get permission in preparations for scrapping the hulls.”

  Taking a deep breath. “ My men are also running into problems getting out to inspect them. The base Commander is making it impossible for my teams to get out into the crater itself without an escort that restricts what ships they can even get near not to mention that we are having to place guards on the ships in the construction locks to keep the Basses Command ant er from stripping them any farther even though you have sent orders to reactivate them.”

  Taking a deep breath the Rear Admiral shook his head as he watched the accident investigation emergency crews out the window crawling over the wreck . Glancing back at the Supreme Admiral. “I have ordered the few newer Battle Ships not already scrapped along with the Carriers and Heavy Cruisers, re-commissioned first because we have nothing better at the moment. But it is going to take weeks months at least before any of them rejoin the fleet. If my crews can ever get into the damn crater. If we still have a fleet by then. And i I f my crews can ever get into the damn crater. "

  “Well. At least I have ordered the Battlecruiser production line restarted to finish the ships in the Airdocks but this news makes starting the line worthless if we can’t survive that long. ” The Supreme Admiral of England 21 , started fuming as he shook his head at the waste and destruction from their own Parliamentary leaders. In this case of the Pacifist Lord of Parliament believing that if the English Navy was eliminated outright, that all the people in the Galaxy could all live together in a universe of harmony and peace. At least that is what he seemed to be saying in his speeches to all his supporters and the masses , kept sucking in . That the Navy was the reason for all the pirates and blood shed across the universe.

  Of course if she got rich pocketing the proceeds from scrapping that navy so much the better. It simply placed her in a better position to get reelected and tell the populace how they needed to live and could not do to enjoy her Shangri-La. But he had thought he had stopped her from scrapping their newer ship s younger than 5 years. He had a si ckening feeling about the state of those ships after hearing that hulls were being stripped and left in place to be counted. The Supreme Admiral suddenly regretted a greeing to the Prime Ministers proposal to allow the Battle Cruiser line to remain active with one partial shift in exchange for allow ing her to pick the 3 rd moon’s Commandant .

  "Oh. Ah. Admiral. You know that I was First Officer of the Battleship the Dread, and slated to command one of the new Battle Cruisers when the war ended."

  "Ok Edwards , yes. So?"

  "Well, I am intimately familiar with them and not to take to many liberties but it is going to take a year s to finish start and commission the battle cruisers and more years until the a first of the new upgraded Battle Cruiser comes out of the lock . Just putting the 48 inch guns 's in turrets, which the French Battle is showing must be done, is going to take one hell of a lot of time and cost. The reason they were fixed to the fins the hull in the first place since the monster Death Moon Battleships they were designed to take on, could not maneuver worth shit ."

  The Supreme Admiral just starred at the Rear Admiral with what Edwards recognized was his (we have no choice, what else can we do) look of exasperation so go do it and leave me alone expression.

  Taking a deep breath as the Rear Admiral he assembled his thoughts. ''Well sir. We have 16 Battle Cruisers still in on the building docks ways , too far long to scrap economically at an extremely slow rate of production of at least a year before the first of them are launched. With the equipment and hull sections for a dozens more in various stages of completion around the building yard station, with the major long lead items for a dozen s more at least , maybe two , laying in storage around the factories around the State that by some miracle have not been scrapped yet since it costs money to scrap them."

  "Yes Edwards? I have already ordered 3 full shifts restored to the Battle Cruiser Production and factories. The first should be commissioned in 6 months instead of a year but still with the same obvious flaws."

  "No sir. Well, yes sir but we need to cut the hulls center fighter and bomber bays and cargo hold sections s for long term deployment s, sections out of the 16 almost completed in the docks ways making them half as long. At a thousand feet long with the Battlecruiser’s big engines they already have, they suddenly become light enough and maneuverable enough to fight a close range battle without turrets and we can easily add external Ceramic-compositcrete armor to their hulls that make them immune to most of the old battleship guns the pirates’ normally use which we also now know is needed. Turning them into Fast Battleships outright. We Y ou should have 4 of the short hulls launched in 3 months and 6 more finished and close to commissioning in 6 months with the rest done by the end of a year. While we use the remaining almost finished hull sections already constructed elsewhere in the yard to restart the production line going for one short hull every 2 months to begin with even before after the initial 16 are completed. I already have the basic plans in the computer Admiral."

  “Ceramic compositcrete armor? What the hell is that shit Edwards?”

  “The Russians invented it for their Death Moon Battle stations. Even the 48 inch guns have a hard time penetrating the hundred feet the moons have as armor and all the Russian’s had to do was basically mix and pour it around their battle stations. It is cheap light weight armor we can use to our advantage. Thank god they did not think of using it on the rest of their ships or we could very well have lost the war. Luckily for us, the damn Death Moons were so slow with them t
aking months even years to move between star systems with the ir high command believing it was due to the concrete like armor and not the massive amounts of solid steel instead of steal foam that went into the construction inside the outer shell of armor and the pitifully weak very inefficient engines they put on them that were lucky to put out half their rated thrust even on good days. Not to mention the massive amounts of reaction mass they had to carry. While we only need protection from old 12 inch and smaller guns as well as torpedoes which the ships already have moderately armored bulkheads and quad hulls to obsorb anything that gets through the armor.”

  The Supreme Admiral sat starring at Rear Admiral Edwards for a good minute throwing the little round candies from the dish on his desk into his mouth one by one and taking his time chewing them or letting them melt in his mouth as he studied the plans Edwards had put up on the main screen. Finely shaking his head in agreement getting a little smile crossing his lips. "Ok Edwards; you are fired if 4 short battleships are not fleet ready in 4 months with 6 more in 7 months. And see if you can speed that production line up from just 6 a year after the initial 16 are delivered."

  "Very good. Admiral. But one more option for you to consider first and you may not like it." The Rear Admiral watched the Supreme Admiral sit back in his chair with raised eyebrows. "What we really need as Captain Summers reports have said over and over again and this battle all the way over in the French State’s Capital system has shown, is a fast heavy cruiser that can be mass produced by the hundreds quickly . A Cruiser that is fast enough to mass with only a few days at a moment's notice from over an area light year s s a way cross when needed or simply patrol by itself without fear of being ambushed and able to take on most of what the pirates can normally throw at it without support. Yet be able to run when out gunned by a small fleet or a of several battleship ambushing it.”