Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (63 page)

Shelby
looked up in surprise. “Warthog?” she shook her head. “You mean they got that
old rust bucket flying again?”

“Warthog,
militia gunship. Sub light craft closer to a frigate than a gunship Admiral.
The Vesta colony pulled her weapons and used her as an inner system freighter
until her reactor maintenance became too difficult, then shut her down in orbit
of the colony,” Sprite said into his ear.

“That
was what the parts were for I bet!” Shelby grinned. “They must have gotten her
flying again with the parts dad shipped to them a couple of weeks ago.”

“And
the weapons?” Firefly asked.

“Hopefully
on board,” Shelby nodded to the comm. tech.

“Warthog
is asking permission to dock. She needs supplies Admiral.” She looked over her
shoulder to the Admiral. “She's got a crew but they’re not augmented and they
don't have any munitions at all,” she grimaced.

“Permission
granted. Shelby...”

“Call
the Bosun and get him moving munitions and supplies and get an engineering team
together to go over that ship with a fine tooth comb. Alert the doctor. Tell
Warthog to have their first four augment volunteers inside her lock and ready
to go,” he said nodding. “Preferably bridge and engineering personnel if at all
possible.”

“On
it.” She was looking up, focusing on her implants. “Done. And done,” she nodded
after a moment.

“Call
doctor Standish. I want a full medical eval of each crew member and any other
volunteers for the Navy,” he nodded again.

“Captain
Waters is asking to speak to you Admiral,” the com tech said looking up. Irons
nodded.

“Right.”
He opened a channel. “Captain Waters this is Admiral Irons. I am glad you could
make it.”

There
was a series of static and pops then a gravelly voice answered. “Glad we could
too. Our systems need a lot of work Admiral,” he said sounding eager but
nervous.

“We're
on it Captain, the exec has engineering teams and supplies standing by. If you
could ask your engineer to shoot us a list of what you need we will get the replicators
working right away.”

“Thank
the spirits of space,” the Captain said after a moment. “Warthog will dock in
twenty minutes. Warthog out.”

“All
right people, you heard the man, twenty minutes. Let's move it!” Shelby clapped
her hands together. “I finally feel like we're not just going to win, we're
going to kick butt doing it,” she grinned as she got to her feet.

Janice
chuckled. “Well, it will be good to get some of our own back. I didn't like
what they did to Carib or to the colony,” she nodded. “I can help.” She turned
to Irons. “With your permission of course.”

He
nodded. “Make it so.”

“Admiral,
we've received word, Maya has arrived at the colony and is docked with
Sun-Yat,” Patty, the tech said looking up from her board. Sun-Yat had arrived
at the Horsehead colony a dozen hours ago and was ready to go.

Petty
officer Jesse looked up from her station and nodded. “Corvette?” she asked. She
had just gotten out of rehab and was still getting used to her implants. She
must have missed the news about the ship.

“Don't
set your hopes up so high Petty Officer. Try a wannabe militia gunship. Old sub
light tender converted during the last days of the war,” Sprite reported. “They
need a lot of repairs though, Logan sent a log of things they are working on
and requested that we upgrade our ETA.”

“Think
he's getting nervous minding the store all on his own?” Firefly asked. “We are
about six and a half hours out from the jump point.”

“I
doubt it. Though that could be a part of it. We're moving at our best speed with
Warthog attached though right?” Irons asked.

In
the past three shifts they had made great strides in ironing out the little
ships laundry list of problems. But for every repair it seemed there were ten
more to take their place on the list. His crew were getting tired and cranky.
Mistakes were beginning to crop up.

“Admiral,
I've got word from Doctor Standish, He's said to tell you the volunteers have
all been augmented and are recovering. He's not sure they will be fit for duty
before we undock however,” Firefly cautioned.

“Okay,”
Irons nodded, rubbing his chin. “Swap crew?” he asked. “Temporary?”

“Could
work. At least for the interim. I strongly suggest we get some down time soon
though Admiral,” Firefly cautioned. “You organics aren't built for sustained
work at these levels and for extended time periods. Marked loss in efficiency
has been noted in the last two shifts.”

“Right.
We've got Warthog's drive sorted out as far as we can, and her hull is buttoned
up. I see...” He looked at the HUD. “We've got her weapons up, all but the last
point defense turret. Get her crew list sorted out with Captain Waters and have
them start running diagnostics and start shaking things down to stamp out the
bugs. Have our own people stand down at the end of this shift and rest.”

“Aye
aye,” Firefly said nodding. “You need the rest too Admiral, we need you ship
shape as well for the battle.”

“Agreed,”
Irons sighed. He looked over to Harris. “You've got the bridge. Pass it over to
Dan and then Janice in four hour increments. Get some down time now folks while
we can. You'll need it soon enough. I want you all fresh, fed, and rested when
the time comes.”

He
fought a yawn as he got up and stretched. “Carry on,” he nodded, exiting the
compartment.

"We've
got hyper emergence from the Agnosta jump point. Globular formation, locus
confirmed," the sensor tech looked up face tight.

 Irons
nodded. "Ship types and course?" he asked. They had been on station
for the past two days. It looked like their luck had finally run out. Firefly
was low, at the bottom of the minefield. The gunships Maya and Warthog were on
either flank of the field. Sun-Yat was at the top. All the ships were powered
down in stealth mode, running as silent as they could.

"Still
gathering data now. It looks, yes, at least one destroyer Arboth class, two
Manta class militia grade frigates, and at least a dozen civilian grade drives
detected. We're picking up IFF on the destroyer and a factory ship now,"
she grimaced. "The destroyer... She's the Damocles sir, out of
Haroth." Irons nodded.

The
sensor tech frowned, tweaking the feed. “Correction, three Frigates. Three. One
of them was in the drive shadow of one of the freighters on the other side of
the formation from us.”

An
Arboth class was a tough customer to face with anything less than a cruiser.
The ship was a rough cylindrical shape, with flattened keel and top deck. Her
stern had a cluster of eight fusion engines while her bow mounted the usual
sensor suite and clusters of weapons.

On
her top and keel she had large kinetic energy turrets. Her flanks were studded
with missile tubes, graser mounts, and a cruiser's point defense network. She
was a fast and heavy hitter, but she had a limited weapons supply and only one
large fusion reactor.

He
was pretty sure they didn't have her antimatter reactor up and running. If they
had her energy reading would have been a hell of a lot higher. Judging from the
patches on her hull she had seen better days.

"And
the factory ship?" he asked quietly.

"She's
the Hephaestus thirty three. The other civilian ships look like freighters and
a yacht. One of the freighters is the Destiny. Sending data to your station
now." The tech sent the mental command.

He
studied it for a moment. The destroyer was in the lead, the two frigates were
on the flanks with the slower factory ship and freighters trailing. Most of the
freighters were Clydesdales. A good hardy platform, the Clydesdales had been in
service for centuries prior to the Xeno war with only periodic upgrades. They
were quite common through out the galaxy. The Zanzibar class freighter was
expected. The Demeter class agricultural ship was a surprise. He'd honestly
thought that had been a miss identification. Either they had picked it up and
kept it as a prize or they were using it as a logistics center.

"We've
got separation, looks like... " the tech frowned. "I thought it was
parasite craft but they're too big sir." She looked over to him.

"HKs,"
Firefly replied.

"HKs?"
Janice asked.

"Hunter
Killers. Gunboats. Sub-light ships about as powerful as our corvettes,"
Harris answered. "We've got six. They were spreading out around the
formation, looks like one is playing shepherd over the freighters, the rest are
moving into a conical formation in front of the fleet now."

Irons
nodded. "They are the hounds. The destroyer is the hunter. Makes
sense." Harris grimaced. "They're good, I'll give them that. I didn't
expect the HKs." He shook his head.

"Are
we in trouble?" Janice stage whispered.

"When
aren't we?" the sensor tech responded.

"That's
enough people. Let’s focus on the task at hand. Give me an ETA on the enemy
task force to the minefield, and to the first colony. Tag the destroyer as
bogey one, Each frigate as bogey two, three, and four, and the gunships as
bogie's five through ten. Can we update the other ships without being
detected?" Irons asked looking over to the comm. tech.

"Yes
sir, we've got a whisker on them now. They are several light minutes away
though, it will take that long to update them and double that time to get a response,"
he said sounding guilty.

"No
problem. Give them an update. I think we're going to go with whiskey three
alpha." Irons looked over to Harris who nodded confirmation. "Right,
whiskey three alpha it is. Make sure they understand it."

Whiskey
three alpha was one of the plans he, Dan, Mayweather, and Harris had devised
yesterday. They had only drilled it once as a team.

"They've
spotted the mine layers, some of the HKs, I mean bogeys, four and six are
moving off in pursuit," the sensor tech said. Irons grimaced. Taking a
decidedly still green crew into a combat situation was not something he was
looking forward to doing. Then again, he didn't have a choice anymore.

 "Damn.
Okay, we're going to have to sniper the HKs and frigates once the mines go off.
Either kill or disable with KEWs the moment we start moving. Hit any still
under power with beam weapons as we pass. I want a full spread on that big boy
though, I don't like the looks of it," Irons said an hour later. The  more
he thought about it, the more he didn't like the odds. Three frigates, one tin
can, and six HKs. Sure the Pyrax force was repaired, but they were nowhere near
fighting trim. He knew an element to his unease was stage fright. It always
kicked in before combat. He pointed to the destroyer. "Where the hell did
they get something like that?" he muttered.

 "Probably
the same place we did," Shelby said. She'd been surprised by the number of
warships. They weren't well organized though, it had taken them an hour to
shake down and launch their Hk's. Their passive readings were all over the
place.

He
looked over to Firefly then shrugged. "Right. Helm. Come about to ten
degrees by negative twenty point two. Let's keep them guessing about the
attack. Time to mine field?" he asked.

"Enemy
ETA two minutes forty four seconds. The Valdez tug is running now. Tender has
gotten underway but she's still streaming mines." Irons shook his head.
Guiterrez had a set on him to keep doing that. Then again each mine he kicked
out was less mass his drives had to push.

"She's
slower than all get out compared to a warship."

He
sighed. "Gutierrez and Jorge know what they are doing," Shelby said
softly. He nodded. "We can't do anything but watch for now anyway,"
she said. He studied her profile then nodded again.

"They're
turning! Enemy is turning down hard!" the sensor tech said. He turned to
the plot and swore softly.

"Someone
over there is smart. They figured it out," he said.

"Damn."
Shelby muttered.

"It
won’t help them much. Mines are in extreme attack range. Shall I activate
them?" Harris at tactical asked.

"Do
it. But make sure they target the warships in range," Irons cautioned.
Shelby looked over to him.

"I
want the freighters if we can catch them," he said. She raised an eyebrow.
"Intel and prisoners," he expanded. She nodded suddenly.

"Right."
She turned back to her plot then sat back into her couch. "Jacking
in," she murmured. He chuckled.

“The
lead elements are in attack range. Mines are active," the tac assistant
intoned.  “They are trying to maneuver to avoid the field.”

“That's
the fun part of inertia, it's a killer,” Irons muttered. The pirates were
skidding into the minefield perimeter. They had stacked the field high, human
nature being to pull up to avoid a sudden obstacle. So far that had paid off.

The
ships were trapped on their current bearing, a few of the ships that were
faster on the helm had done an end over end flip to try to alter their speed
and course but that still left their residual inertia to deal with.