Battleship Destroyer (118 page)

"Captain, the survivors from the hulk are requesting permission to board." Pan got up from her chair. Permission to greet them Captain? They have many wounded and will need medical help."

"You a doctor as well Pan?"
Jack's eye brows raised as he smiled. “Go do what you can." Turning back to his screen. He knew the ship's Doctor was headed there already. "Security, go over that boat before it is allowed into the dock."

Fifteen minutes later Jack
watched the carnage coming off the boat. Only a couple hundred odd aliens had survived out of thousands.  Shaking his head he looked at the distant ship slowly drifting down the tunnel in the main screen. "Well. At least we will get most of those alive and well. Then we can get in some more target practice with the big guns." Glancing at the clock readout. "Plenty of time."  Jack got up and walked back behind the bridge to the pantry, brewing himself a cup of Earl Grey tea with one sweetener. He liked his tea sweet and preferred two but with the little packets in short supply he rationed himself to one. Taking the cup he walked back into the bridge giving the rating next to the hatch a warning eye to keep his mouth shut and sat down. "Ok let's see if we can find our reticent Command ship. Anything on our long range sensors?"

"Sorry Captain, our last readings
were 5 minutes ago, it was still going strong corkscrewing its way into the nebula cloud. If it continues on its base course and speed, it will come out the other side in about a thousand years or two if the shields last that long."

Pan came onto the bridge with a big human smile on her face. "Thank you Captain Turner. My cousin's wounds will heel." Pulling out her pad she started scribbling on it again. "Now let's see how our brethren are doing on the other ship."

Pan suddenly started yelling in some strange language as she stood up running to Jack and showing him the pad filled with chicken scratches. Continuing to yell at Jack.

Jack's mouth opened for a second as he tried to figure out what was going on
, what she was saying. Then frowning he turned and reached around the back of his chair grabbing his helmet and the translator inside until he remembered that the new suit that Pan had had made for him had the helmet built into the collar and reached around the back of his neck and pulled it up across his head.

Pan pushed the helmet back off Jacks head before he could finish
pulling it down over his face. "I am sorry Captain. My. I.  The berserkers have arisen and are slaughtering the slaves on the other ship. Most are already dead which is why I was not called. My counterpart was probably one of the first to die."

"Berserkers? Wha
t the hell are Berserkers?"

Grabbing Jack by the arm and squeezing hard enough for Jack to feel
through his armor. "We must leave immediately. Now! Run! The human captives killed the God Captain and God officers not knowing that would activate the Berserkers."

"What are you talking
about Pan?"

"With the death of the slave crew
by the berserkers, the cores are set to auto destruct. You have only a few minutes to leave the area Captain before they detonate.

"Captain, energy spike on the Spider Ship. Fusion Core
s are cold starting. Hell sir. 5 of them Captain. One was already going. I can't believe at least one of them did not blow from the cold start. "

"Shit, Number One, Get us out of here, down that tunnel at full thrust now."

The ship made a swing around the hulk and started down the tunnel.

"Hull heating up Captain, 3,000 and going up fast."

"Exec, emergency crash alarms. Get everyone in the Geebunks."

"Fusion Cores, are heating up fast
Captain. They are already at their max temp. If they have enough fuel stored between them we will have another sun as bad as last time sir."

The ship raced out of the tunnel and down the passageway.

Jack stared at Pan trying to figure out what had happened.

"Auto response Captain." Pan said. "If the God
Officers kill too many or turn the Berserkers loose onto the slave crews, they detonate the cores. Standard operating procedures to protect us slaves from too much persecution. It was one of the Godships that had taken part in the invasion of one of your frontier worlds and taken several hundred prisoners that look like your marines." Pan studied her screen. "I down loaded the ships logs and it looks like your humans did the unthinkable and took guns from their Ape guards when they were transferring them below to our decks for indoctrination into slaves at my counterparts request so they could take the humans with them. The prisoner holding area is directly below the flight deck below the first armored deck and they managed to arm themselves just as they had descended down to the bridge level on the God Captains deck. It is possible the humans did not know they were being freed and took advantage of a situation." Scratching her pad.  "Yes, many died getting the weapons and then they killed the God Captain taking the God Officer's deck and headed back up toward the flight deck."

"
The Apes were released in berserker mode automatically with the death of the God Captain." Looking up at Jack Pan looked white. "That is when they are dumped out of hibernation in seconds without time to properly thaw and given excessive amounts of chemicals. They come out basically stupid high speed killing machines that have a life span of only days and twice their normal strength and resistance to damage. Their only function is to kill ships invaders as well as every living thing left on the ship not a God." Glancing back at the pad. "Your marines did not make it to the flight deck." Looking back up at Jack. "There are only a few slaves left alive with almost 10,000 berserkers running around the ship Captain. The 6 cores will detonate perfectly timed shortly after the last slave is dead. Unlike an accidental or damage induced detonation. A perfectly timed detonation includes flooding the compartment around each core with all the remaining fusion fuel. This is going to be big. If it was detonated in the atmosphere of a hydrogen gas giant, it would light it into a miniature sun that would burn for thousands of years before going out from lack of mass. In this cloud the plasma shock wave will be just as bad even though a miniature sun will not be created.  I have no record of one going off in a nebula this dense so I do not know exactly how big the fireball will be but most likely at least half way to the God hulk we left crew on."

"Shit Pan." Jack looked over the tactical and the boats coming down the narrow tube from the hulk transport stuck there
and the Red Pepper weaving its way down the passageways. "Number One, cut through the cloud. We are picking up the Assault Shuttles on a drive by." The ship spun around and started cutting a new tunnel directly toward the boats. Jack tapped the comm. "Captain Clancy. I am glad you made it off your ship but we have a problem.  We have a Spider ship getting ready to detonate its cores, six of them. You are in its blast radius. We are making a run past you but cannot slow down as much as we should. You are going to have to match speed then clamp the Shuttles to the hull of the ship as we pass. The pilots have experience doing that. Trust them to do it right. You just get the velocities matched and hold on."

"You have got to be kidding Captain Turner. Who detonates six cores on purpose?"

"We will be there in 2 minutes. Sending you our course and speed data. Be there Captain or find a bunker to hide in." Jack smiled. "Slaves do when their Gods start slaughtering them. One minute 55 seconds Captain. Good luck. Out."

Jack watched the Assault Shuttles race down the last part of the tunnel and out the end
. Then down the long passageway that had allowed the transport to accelerate up to the velocity it had needed to punch itself a tunnel so far up inside the cloud where they could hide. The Spider Assault boats only hope was to make it to the end of the passageway where Jack planned to enter and hope they could catch up with the Red Pepper. Matching velocities before they reached the end where the Red Pepper had to start punching its way down a much too small tunnel while missing the hulk sitting at the end.

"Jack. Breath and take a sip of our tea before it gets cold." Jack looked around at the Ensign as she started whispering in his ear again. "You are scaring the crew."

Jack realized his jaw was starting to ache from grimacing and he was starting to feel light headed. Taking a deep breath he tried to smile. "Ya well, I already am." Looking down at his still steaming tea he picked it up and took a sip and made a face. "Hell, I should have put two in." Kicking himself for trying to ration the few remaining sweetener packs.

She slapped a packet of his favorite sweetener down on the chairs arm. "Here have mine and shut up you baby."

Jack gave her a dirty look as he smiled at her and picked up the packet, tearing off the top and pouring it into his cup then stirring it in. "Comm, get me the Spider hulk and Commander Murphy." Then took a sip and then a deep breath trying to relax.

"Commander Murphy
on the line Sir."

"Commander, a spider is getting ready to detonate its cores
and while you are not in its fireball blast radius we hope, you will receive a damn big shock wave some 5 minutes after it goes off. Pull everything into the hulk and button up as best as you can to ride it out. We will join you as soon as we can if we survive. No time for questions or answers just get ready. Out." Jack cut the connection and took another sip of tea as he watched the Assault Shuttles reach the end of the passageway and sit there side by side.

Looking at the icon of the Red Pepper rapidly approaching the two sitting Assault Shuttles Jack started shaking his head. "Ok guys, you can start accelerating." Looking back and forth between their Icons. "Come one Captain
Clancy, Now. Go for Stars sake." But they both just sat.

Jack hit the comm and started opening his mouth when the two Icons started moving. Shutting his mouth and closing the comm he forced himself to breath
, trying not to grimace or scream at the Shuttles for not starting sooner or a hundred other things he wanted to do to release the tension. "To late damn it." He whispered to himself. Knowing in his heart that they would miss the rendezvous.

The two Assault Shuttles quickly gained speed as the Red Pepper burst out of the cloud and using 1200 gees changed its
course slightly to head down the passage going like a ship shot from one of the God guns. Turning the ship tail first she started slowing down as the Assault Transport boats accelerated at full throttle leaving a stream of reaction mass behind them trying to make even 100 Gees. Jack glanced at the Shuttle Icons showing their acceleration and felt pity. The Gods could make black hole engines for their battleships but not for their boats. But then as massive as the coils had to be with all the reinforcement needed in order to create those black holes, maybe they had no choice and were limited on how small they could make them.

The Red Pepper streaked past the Assault boats as it continued to slow, pulling well below a thousand Gees as the First Officer worried about the ships exhaust destroying the boats until
he was past them before going back up to max thrust.

Jack watched the end of the passageway looming up all too fast as the boats
finally started catching up to the ship. "Damn. Why didn't you start sooner the damn you so the ship would not have to come back after you." He knew the end of the passageway would win that race. With the boats still a thousand feet behind the ship, they entered the cloud. Jack bit his lip as he watched the boats hit the end of the now much widened passageway and continued to slowly gain on them.

The First Officer had switched the engines over to boring a tunnel
through the cloud as they followed the original tunnel. Which did not help matters.

Jack started looking at the end of
tunnel and the rapidly approaching hulk they were headed directly for as the boats ever so slowly caught up to the ship. Threading the distance between the hull and the white hot tunnel sides they slid up alongside the ship.

And then simply sa
t there as they again slowly approached the hull trying to make a soft landing to keep from damaging anything. "Godstar almighty! Dock already! Jack said aloud."

Suddenly the ship
jerked sideways slamming into the belly of one of the shuttles and then to the other side to slam into the other. With them both finally locked down onto the ship's hull Jack looked at the rapidly approaching hulk knowing they were going to hit it.

The First Officer turn
ed the ship at an angle hitting the throttles digging a long hole to one side then turned the ship to the other side at an angle to use the engines to push them into the angled tunnel before straitening the ship out again into the new tunnel barely missing the hulk at the end of the original tunnel.

"Damn good Going Number One. That is one hell of a way to change
course." Taking a breath. "Tactical how far are we from the edge of the estimated blast zone?"

"At this velocity Captain, 2 minutes but punching a tunnel is slowing us down." Tactical came back without waiting.

"Two point three minutes." Said the Navigator. "If deceleration remains constant. Though I have noticed that deceleration rates depend a lot on cloud densities sir."