Battleship Destroyer (2 page)

But then his grandfather
was coming up on 200 years old and it was not the first time he had flubbed. Though, if Jack had been paying attention that morning or even read the days schedule when he reported to the bridge instead of gossiping about the invaders, he would have noticed the mistake as the old man was in the process of plotting and entering the landing course when the bridge was still relatively empty before landing stations had been called.  All he would have had to do then if he didn’t just enter the correct mass figures himself, was make some statement or comment about how nice the lowland port was to land at far away from the mountains and the old man (everyone called Pop,) would have caught it. Telling Jack that he had just been testing him, if he said anything at all.

Jack chuckled
at the little games Pop and him had been playing over the years as his grandfather had gone from teaching him navigation along with a whole slew of College courses, to Jack checking the somewhat senile old man's work to make sure he was taking them to the right star system, the right planet inside that star system and even the right Star Port, along with the current ships mass down to the pound and a dozen other variables, without anyone else on the bridge crew noticing him checking and his little hints. The crew just figuring that Pop needed to continue to teach the young moron that seemed unable to learn simple basic navigation. Why else would Jack keep hanging around the old man every time he plotted a course?

The arguments in public Pop and Jack got into on the bridge
during the long waits, as well as the mess deck during chow, concerning the Advanced College course material he was taking most of the time from Pop, went a long way to reinforcing Jack as a moron in their eyes. After all, Jack had to be pretty stupid to disagree with Pop, who was once considered one of the top University Professors in the Republic and the head of some big research directorate before retiring. Jack could not help but notice their looks of sorry derision toward him when they did notice him. Jack just figured since he was the Captain's youngest son, he was never going to be good enough in their eyes until he grew up and became a real Pilot, taking his brothers place.

Jack
simply studied hard to get the right education so he could become a pilot, while trying to stay invisible and out of their way until then. His father (ship’s Captain), mother (ship’s Executive Officer sitting on the other side of the bridge) and brother (ship’s Pilot) did not help his stature as they went out of their way pointing out in great detail every minor flaw, mistake or infraction when they did notice him and worse yet, in front of the crew. Though he had given up log ago, trying to please them beyond doing his basic job, knowing they (especially his brother), would invent something if they could not find anything. But now, glancing back at the plot on his screen, he frowned and kicked himself for failing Pop and the ship yet again.

T
he problem was. If he said anything now half way through the landing, he would be called stupid and told to shut up by his father in front of the whole bridge crew even if his brother (the pilot) sitting just forward of him let him finish the statement before being slapped stupid for daring to talk on the bridge during landing. And even then, there was no certainty Pop would hear and understand in time to change the ship's course to avoid the massive expense and risk of missing the Port. Except then Jack would be blamed for disturbing Pop, the bridges routine and for the ship missing the Port even though no course change had been made. Then within minutes, the whole ship would know and he would not be able to stick his head out of his cabin's hatch for weeks without getting laughed at or derided for his stupidity. Especially with his brother egging and reminding everyone at every opportunity that it was his fault the ship almost crashed.

It
had happened to many times already concerning other mistakes (most of them not his), to the point that every time something went wrong on the bridge, even when it could not possible have been his fault, Jack got the blame somehow anyway. Though the last time had been a good 6 months before. Ever since he had gotten in the habit of keeping a close eye on everything that went on around the bridge and either fixing them while no one was looking or dropping quite hints before most problems developed  into something serious. Like checking Pop’s calculations, or noticing the landing gear locks were still on or the maneuvering thrusters were on cruise during landing or a board was malfunctioning and not showing an approaching ship or any of a hundred other things that could and did go wrong on a bridge. Things the ship’s Captain was supposed to notice if he was not always talking to the passengers or telling stories about how great he was at buying and trading cargo and getting lucrative transport orders that Jack had heard a hundred times. Though every port seemed to have a new story with it since the last time they landed or took off.

Jack’s
years playing the (Battleship Command game) along with his punishments when something did go wrong on the bridge, had taught him to anticipate problems before they became problems, even if he was not responsible for them. So failing to correct such a simple mistake when he should have, was eating at him.  He had to do something even if it was wrong. Either way he would pay for it, but at least it would not cost the ship or all their lives, even if he did get grounded for a month.

U
nless he tried something different.

After failing
to get his older brother's (the pilot) attention and in desperation, he reached to his right and forward around the left side of his big brother’s somewhat over weight belly, to the base of the thrust lever under his brother's left hand's fingers hovering above it. Hoping his brother would not notice, Jack pulled it ever so slowly back about 10 percent until the Nav plot (he still had up on his screen), showed them impacting the ground a hundred miles beyond the port at a thousand miles an hour.

As he
pulled his hand back from the throttle he realized that it was not going to work the way he had thought.

T
he main screen’s Nav plot started squealing on him for everyone to see and hear.

H
is older brother suddenly looked down at the screaming Navigation Plot screen and back up at the suddenly red plot line in his heads up display.  The pilot stared at the pair of diverging plot lines (the Red line showing the actual course of the ship above the Green plotted course line to the space port), for a few seconds and then pushed the throttles back up for the two lines to meet again.

Taking a few deep breaths as his brother turned away again
getting the attention of one of the female officers he was putting the moves on. Jack reached up and pulled the throttle back again.

His brother the ship’s pilot whipped
his head around as Jack’s hand slid back from the control board with a brief disbelieving, surprised, questioning look as a sneer started growing across his face. The navigation alarm started sounding for everyone on the Bridge to hear.

Jack’s brother
raised his hand off the throttle. Debating with himself whether to back hand Jack senseless now or just wait and beat his much younger stupid pain in the butt brother later and how to do it so he would not get caught while having a whole lot more fun.

Jack smiled
meekly and shrugged his shoulders trying not to shake too hard, hooking his thumb back over his shoulder at his granddad, Pop and forced out the words. "Pop. Not the mountain port…Wrong gravity gradient. Trade winds." Jack whispered in a voice that kept trying to squeak so only his brother Dan could hear.

Jack's father in the raised Command
chair behind and slightly to the right of the pilot so he could keep a close eye on both the Pilot and Navigator and was usually too busy running the rest of the ship or smoozing passengers on the Comm, to notice most things going on around the bridge, noticed. It was hard to miss the plot screen flashing with the alarm screaming as it showed them impacting the ground. In a demanding voice that would have carried across a gymnasium. "Dan! What is going on here? Get that throttle back up this instant."

His brother
's sneer disappeared, replaced with concern as he turning to the navigator seat across the navigation plot screen between them. "Pop; you want to check the plot for the lowland port. That is a nasty trade wind down there today. We don't usually have to deal with it at the high mountain Port."

"What? There
is nothing wrong with my… Oh. Nab darn it. Flat Plain’s lowland port? Damn gradient."  The old man started tapping on his keyboard. "Thanks Dan. That trade wind looks nasty doesn't it?" The plot slowly curved back down to the port and into the landing pit.  Then his brother started shoving the ship around, drifting back and forth like the ship was a drunken pendulum around the course plot line.  It took him a half minute to finely get the ship to settle onto the new plot line.

The whole time Jack
's fingers flew over his control board, frowning each time his brother slammed his control stick from one side to the other as he kept over shooting the plot line.

Finally the ship
crept up settling onto the line and Jack was able to relax. Taking a sip of his steaming tea sitting in the holder next to him. 

"Good going Dan
." Said their father from the Captain's chair behind them. "You have a sharp eye and will make a great Captain."

Jack turned around to protest but as he opened his mouth
, Dan back handed him across the side of his head. "Get your eyes back on that gravity board moron. We don't need any damaged cargo simply because you weren’t paying attention during descent."

Jack's mouth opened and
closed a few times trying to get enough courage to say what he wanted to say and then his father (the ship's Captain) spoke up as Jack started to protest.

"You heard him Jack. Get your eyes back on your board
and get that screen back onto the grav-sensor readouts. We have a lot of fragile cargo this trip, not to mention passenger's that don't tip if they get space sick. You are going to have to back off just a little on the Y vector coils rate of decay since the low land port has a shallower gravity gradient than you are used to at the other port." Taking a breath. “That also means you get 4 hours of extra duty for watching a video. I told you what I was going to do the next time I caught you. You don’t have much to do on duty but videos are not part of it. Besides it will keep you off that stupid game for a while. About time you started pulling your weight around here anyway now that you are 18. Even if it is just cleaning decks.”

Jack turned back to his board fuming. He could run that board blindfolded with
all the screens showing videos if he had to and do a better job. Besides, he had already backed off on the Y coils decay rate long ago, if his father had bothered to look. Jack had realized years before that he did a better job if he could see things going on around the ship, including what his brother was doing and anticipate what the ship was headed for. Things such as the Trade winds, strength of the magnetic and gravity waves they were approaching ahead of time, instead of just staring at the damn board like he was taught.  Reacting to what the board and the auto controller finally showed him that missed half of everything he really needed. That is until it was much too late to change most settings before the ship jerked or bumped or swayed as the auto controller, late as always, tried to compensate. But then he was starting to get the idea subconsciously, that he could see things around him others could not. Impossible.

Well
, the problem was, he could see things others could not, even if he did not realize it. Like gravity and magnetic waves as well as most other radiation besides just the reflected light everyone else could see. Jack just did not see cold empty black space or a planet’s simple blue cloudless sky like everyone else. He could see the electromagnetic waves around him and the ship in much better detail than the stupid ship's sensors.

There was no reason
for him to think that everyone could not see the beautiful rainbow of energy lines crisscrossing the ship, the high energy electrical lines running through the compartments to the equipment around him and anything else that had energy or temperature. No reason to wonder if the rest of the bridge crew could gaze out the ports and see the gravity and magnetic lines arcing from the star, around planets and moons as the ship made its way into a star system. Even ships approaching the Turner Joy had their own magnetic fields as well as their weaker mass waves surrounding them that everyone certainly must see interacting with the Turner Joy's magnetic and grav fields when they got close.

T
he sun sets of flaming lines of light on the horizons of planets everyone always talked about as beautiful, he had to agree was mind boggling to him with all the arches and thousands of inexpressible colors crossing the heavens as the gravity and energy waves of the different stars met the sun and horizon of the planet in a fantastic dance long after the planet's sun disappeared below the horizon taking the red and orange reflection of blinding light on the clouds above and across the horizon away to finely let the other waves brighten the display into a truly glorious  fireworks show for an hour afterword’s. Though he could not understand why people would lose interest just when the show was getting its best. Nor did he understand why he kept seeing simple anemic pictures of sunsets on hundreds of planets in magazines and peoples bulkheads and photo sheets as they bragged about their beauty, when all he could see was some nice, kind of pretty but simplistic colors that fell far short of his reality. The same was for pictures of stars and planets. They always fell short of his reality looking out the bridge ports.