Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Read online

Shaking his head. “You would have thought they would at least have fixed the problems by now. Espeacialy the problems with the 8 inch gun turrets.”

  Pan slid in through the hatch and stopped beside Jack. “How can I help you Captain. I really need to get back to rearranging crews. I may have much of what the maneuvering thrusters need for repairs ready and installed before tomorrow with the extra crews working but it will take a couple of days to move them around to use most of them as propulsion thrusters.”

  “Aaa, we may not need them for propulsion Pan. Ensign turn to page 23 section 5.”

  Turning to glance at Jack she typed in the directions and the plans of a cradle popped up onto the screen.

  “Pan, this is a cradle that can be mounted onto the hull of the Spider hulk that will plug into reinforced hard points on the Destroyers. You can see the specks in the illustration at the corner that these placed on the Spider hulks hull will lock the Destroyer to the ship and allow it to use its main engines to push the Spider ship. The stern should have room for 12 Destroyers staggered around the stern at the corner of the flat cross bulkhead hull. Another 12 should fit on the now useless engine pylons after you cut off the ruined main drive engines. I want these ready for the Destroyers to dock to by tomorrow at 1200 hours. Can you do that or not?”

  Pan studied the screen holding up her pad as she scribble on it for several seconds. “Yes Captain I think we can.”

  “Good. Just don’t kill yourself if you miss the deadline by a bit. OK?”

  “Yes Captain, I am sure we can have the 12 sets of stern cradles in by 1200 hours. The pylon sets may take a few more hours but we can finish them up while we are underway. You have assigned Red to repair the maneuvering thrusters. Do you still want her working on them?”

  “Yes, I don’t want to have to rely on differential thrust management on so many ships to fine tune our coarse or maneuvering.”

  “Very well Captain I will get on it immediately. But we have several of the new thrusters half way down the production lines. I would like to finish and install them for testing. We have never produced a new design before and my Bigfoot and Ding Dong engineers are excited to test the engines. We can mount them in the flat plate hull near the core so not to interfere with the Destroyer engines. If you don’t mind Captain?”

  “Put them on opposite sides of the hull to replace a couple of the knocked out thrusters.”

  “Thank you Captain.” Pan glided rapidly out the hatch.

  Jack had to smile at her excitement before turning back around. “Mr. Weaver, can you get me Commodore Fletcher please. Time to see if I even have the Destroyers to mount in the cradles.”

  Commodore Fletcher appeared on the screen and with no distance delay he said. “Yes Captain Turner, how may I help you?”

  Taking a deep breath Jack grimaced. Suddenly unsure of himself. “I need your Destroyers to temporarily mount on this hulk to push it around the bubble to the Hulk Station on the other side. I really don’t want to have to destroy another perfectly good ship when we can use it for housing the exslaves and the refugees, not to mention stripping the Spider technology from it.”

  The Commander started laughing before Jack had finished his request. “You have got to be kidding Captain. These Destroyers have heavy Cruiser engines in them and will likely rip out anything you tie them down with.”

  “Actually Commander we are in the process of building cradles to mount the Destroyers to the hull of the Battleship. You don’t have to worry about ripping anything out.”

  Shaking his head as the Commodore continued to chuckle. “And what makes you think you can build cradles that will fit let alone hold these Destroyers?”

  “Aaaa. Well Commander. I don’t think. I know. I am the designer of your Destroyers.”

  The Commodore started laughing as he grabbed his stomach shaking his head. “Good one boy. I have not heard such a good piece of bullshit in a decade. Call for Tugs from The Rock if you want to move that hulk around. Wait until I tell Commondonte...”

  “Go to the front of your bridge Commodore and look under the main screen. You will see an inscription etched into the mettle bulkhead. Please read it out loud for me.”

  “What the hell you talking about Captain. Why should I do any such thing?”

  “Just do it Commodore. I think you will be surprised. Just remember my name is Jack Jay Turner.”

  Shaking his head as he chuckled in disbelief, the Commodore walked around the pilot’s navigator console and knelt down in front of the forward screen. Brushed his hand across the bulkhead he shook his head again without chuckling this time. “It says Battleship Destroyer Mk. 5- A 9. Designer, Jack Jay Turner. It gives a 2 year old date then, Produced by, General Ship Construction Corporation, Asteroid Belt Station, Earth. With production date only six months old a couple days before I was assigned as its Captain at the factory station. Production number 1237.”

  Shaking his head the Commodore stepped back from the inscription staring at Jack on the main screen.

  “Damn.” Jack could not help exclaiming. “They have made 1200 of those things?”

  “That was 6 months ago Captain Turner. The hull number on the 6 I just received to flesh out my squadron started with the hull number 2716. I hear most are going to storage in orbit.” Narrowing his eyes. “Jack J Turner must be your father right Captain?”

  Jack chuckled shaking his head. “My father’s name is Roy Turner and is a fair Tramp Trader but couldn’t repair a toaster if his life depended on it let alone design one. You may be looking for my Grandfather Pop Turner to his friends who was the Republic’s Research Director for half a century and retired some 30 years ago. Go back to your engines and look at the plack on one of them and you will see his name as the inventor of most current reaction mass engines in the Republic. But as for your ship. I designed it in The Game and my mother used to call me Jay Jay if she bothered to call me anything.”

  Taking a deep breath as he studied the Commodore. “This ship has technology more advanced than any of the Spider ships we have been on or captured so far. You will bring your Destroyers down to provide propulsion so we can salvage this ship and all its secrets or call the Supreme Admiral and tell him why you decided to let the enemy have their ship back and the location of The Rock.” Jack immediately regretted his words as he tried to keep from cringing in front of the Commodore. He had let himself get big headed at hearing that not only were they building his Battleship Destroyer but that they had built over 2700 of the damn things already.

  “The Admiral ordered you to destroy that hulk not salvage it.”

  Jack swallowed as the Ensign spoke up cutting him off as she stepped up beside Jack. “The only way to destroy one of these things outright is to detonate its fusion cores. You can see the result of that off the damn bow of this ship. Tell you what Commandant. We will leave and you can detonate the core after we are a couple million miles away. We will tell your next of kin, you followed the Vice Admiral’s stupid asinine orders.”

  “Enough Ensign. Commodore, I have orders from a full Admiral to salvage as much Spider Tech as I can.” Jack remembered one of his father’s trade sayings at the dinner table and one thing he had to admit was his father was a damn good Trader. But what did the Commodore need. “Aaa, Commodore Fletcher, I need you to dock your destroyers on the ship so I can upgrade your guns so they will actually do some damage to one of these monsters and fix your engines and turret problems while you are acting as tugs.”

  Shaking his head Commodore Fletcher looked from the Ensign and her huge boobs and back at Jack. “My orders are to patrol and provide protection to take that damn Enemy ship and keep it from falling back into enemy hands and my ships can’t do that docked and acting like tugs.”

  Jack’s mind raced looking for an argument that would mollify the Commodore when the Ensign spoke up again. “We have a thousand fighter bombers we can use as scouts and until you get your guns upgraded to something besides flashlights. Your ships are les
s than worthless Commodore right now. At least our bombers have Spider Torpedoes that are designed to take out other Spider Ships. Your new torpedoes have not even been tested yet against an operational Spider Battleship. Get your worthless ships down here Commodore and we may even be able to figure out how to mount some Spider torpedoes and give you real teeth to take on the Spiders if they do show up.”

  Jack realized that the Commodore was staring at the Ensigns huge boobs as she spoke and glanced down at the stun gun on her hip. She had gotten the Captain/Admiral’s permission on the Red Dwarf to stun anyone that behaved inappropriately around her and her boobs no matter their rank. The Commodore was on the verge of getting stunned if he had been on the bridge in person. The Commodore tore his eyes away from the Ensign’s monsters without making any of the normal comments and was trying to ignore them which Jack knew was damn hard for most men to do until they got used to seeing them.

  “I guess it would not hurt to take a look. Half my ships need engine work anyway. A couple are running on one engine as it is.”

  Smiling Jack tried to reinforce what the Ensign had said. “We will have a couple of squadrons of scouts out by tomorrow morning Commodore before you dock. See you then Commodore Fletcher. Turner out.” Jack turned to the Ensign as the Commodore disappeared from the screen. “Just how the hell are we going to get pilots trained in Spider fighters in less than 20 hours Ensign? We don’t even know if they have simulators let alone how to use them.”

  The Ensign smiled at Jack. “We don’t need to Jack. The Hulk base had some 30 refugee pilots for testing the boats after they had been worked on. This tub is twice the size with a thousand fighter bombers. They have to have pilots to test the fighters as well. With Pans and their pilots help we should be able to train our pilots well enough to at least lead a group of refugee pilots for doing simple patrol sweeps. They don’t need to be able to go into combat.”

  Jack rolled his eyes as he hit his wrist Comm. “Pan it looks like I need to talk to you again at your convenience.” Shaking his head. “Now all I need is to find a damn Republic engineering design console. Aaa Mr. Weaver, see if that Destroyer bringing the maintenance engineers over from the Hulk Station has left yet and get a couple of Sim booths added to the cargo list.”

  “No need to Jack.” The ensign interrupted Jack. “The Destroyers already have a simulator compartment with a half dozen booths.” She gave Jack a strange look wondering why he did not know that already. After all he was supposed to have designed the ships.

  Jack shook his head. “Something I never could get used to was why The Game kept insisting on putting a Virtual Reality Simulation game booth compartment in a ship in a Virtual Reality Game. What Virtual Reality Game was a Virtual Reality Avatar going to play? I must have deleted that compartment a hundred times to use it for more important things on a packed ship that simply had no room to spare.” Taking a deep breath. “So what compartment and its vital equipment got deleted to make room for the damn Game Compartment Ensign?”

  The Ensign tapped a few icons on the console. “Nothing important Captain. The 4 pack cabins with fold out computer consoles and a table in your original design was replaced with coed birthing compartments with 3 tier bunks holding some 36 crewmen each and communal heads and showers that also makes room for the additional crewmen needed for the four turrets that replace the fixed guns in your original design. I did not know you had added turrets Captain.”

  “I didn’t. The turrets were in their early design phase. I still had not worked out all the bugs from the simulations yet.” Studying the Turret schematics the Ensign had put up on the screen after displaying the birthing and simulator compartments as she talked. “It looks like whoever stole my design didn’t bother to finish working out the bugs either. You would think they could at least have done that much work on their own.”

  “Captain.” Mr. Weaver turned around from her comm board. “The 2 destroyers are already half way here with some 2,000 engineers and workers.” Her hand went to her ear comm as she turned back around to look at her screen. “Aaa, the Red Pepper is on the line Captain.”

  “Main screen Lieutenant.”

  “Captain, Commodore Harris has asked that the upgrades you promised Commodore Fletcher for his squadron be done here to his. With your permission I will start the upgrades while we are doing engine maintenance sir.”

  Jack frowned as he ran his hand through his hair then scratched the back of his head. “Aaa Commander, I don’t have a clue what the turret upgrades are going to be yet and I need those Destroyers over here to use as tugs to move this monster to your side of the bubble. Tell Commodore Harris that he will have to take his squadron over here and dock to get the upgrades. You can start running patrols with the Assault Boats you have using the alien refugee pilots and mixed crews. I will see about sending over some of the fighter-bombers we have plenty of over here to supplement them. If Commander Harris objects or gives you problems give me a call.”

  The Commander smiled from ear to ear on the screen. “You may not believe it but most of the Destroyer Captains have come to me wanting to make a supply run over to your side just to get closer to the action. If anything the Commodore is going to have a mutiny on his hands if he drags his feet to much. If nothing else I will start slapping a couple of pallets of MRE’s on Destroyers and send them off your direction one by one after the Commandant goes to bed tonight.”

  Jack tried his best to suppress a smile. “Just make sure you keep it legal with all the paper work signed and in triplicate. As long as we get most of the destroyers over hear we should get this hulk moved over there by the end of the month.” Taking a deep breath and relaxing back into the chair. “Good going Number One. Later. Out.” Jacks stomach rumbled and someone else’s stomach answered. Turning to the Ensign. “That orange juice shit tastes decent and seams to qualm the hunger pains. See if you can rustle up some more.”

  “Yes we have plenty Captain.” Pan slid silently into the command center. “I will have some brought up immediately. I hope that was not the only reason you asked me down here. I have much work to do transitioning the maintenance crews to my control. The existing Dumonts are not taking kindly at my intrusion but I can handle them. Though I have found out why they are unusually resistant. Changing Overseers is common amongst Godships. Overseers tend to die young when the God Officers are displeased. The crew seems to be taking it in stride but I have found out that the Dumonts in overseeing the various departments are all children of Yeti. It seems that after her first children were killed she had gone out of her way to make sure that each of her succeeding children had a vacancy to fill and the God Officers had a reason for passing them and installing them as Overseers by eliminating the old Overseers. Indications are she used deceit to make it look like the old Overseer had made a mistake to have them executed. Others that had gotten wise to her were simply killed by accidents or other means.”

  “Aaa, weren’t you the only Overseer on the Kampuchea? Why does this ship need so many?”

  “The standard complement is an Overseer for every thousand maintenance crewmen. Kampuchea should have had two additional Overseers but when the existing Overseers died of natural causes I knew I would eventually have children and took the extra work onto myself to save the jobs for them. A common practice. Then when they were sold to a different ship I could not bring myself to ask for replacements.” Pan got tears in her eyes before taking a deep breath and continuing. “Yeti seemed to have been lazy and short sighted not doing the same when openings presented themselves to her while her children were young. The records show that she in fact was not very careful reproductively and then even asked for naturally vacated positions to be filled even though she had a young child that would need a job several times and then murdered the replacements when it came time for her child to test out.”

  “And you thought she would see the light about Apes and us humans. I can’t believe you are that naive Pan. It sounds like you Dumonts are a lot more
human than I thought.” Taking a breath and wishing he had a cup of tea. “The reason I asked to talk to you is that I need pilots to fly security patrols using the Spider fighter Bombers. Can your maintenance crew pilots fly and train some of my pilots to fly the Fighter-bombers?”

  Pan started taping on her hand held screen. “This ship is different that the Kampuchea Captain. It has pilot Apes to fly its fighter-bombers. A very demanding profession with high failure rates. I see hundreds of fighter and bomber pilots amongst the Slave Apes with hundreds of crewmen and thousands more still in hibernation. They can fly your patrols and help train your pilots in the simulators on the hanger deck. When do you need them?”

  “As soon as you can get them assembled Pan.” Turning to the Ensign. “You may as well learn to fly Spider fighters Ensign. You still have a Republic pilot license to earn and hopefully it will help. Mr. Weaver you may as well learn as well. Get someone to take over Comms and Duty Officer.” Turning back to Pan. “I need as many fighter-bombers as you can get pilots for into space tomorrow morning Pan to take over patrol work from the Destroyers. Any questions or needs?”

  “No Captain, I have sent word for all the aircrews and fighter maintenance personnel to head for the flight deck and start reactivating fighters. But I must caution you Captain. Fighter-bombers are worthless against Battleships and used only for planetary, moon or station operations in gravity wells where the big battleships have difficulty operating and against small spread out forces.”

  “Well Pan, the fighter-bombers will be as effective as the Destroyers are right now. More so since they can carry the Spider battleship torpedoes right?”

  “Actually Captain, the torpedoes are as big as the fighters. While the Torpedoes fit mounted under and in the bombers weapons bay, I have never even heard of the big torpedoes being mounted under a fighter before. Besides they are only used for attacking planetary targets such as cities.”

  “Well I have a while before the first of the Destroyer transports arrive. Let’s go take a look at these monster Spider Torpedoes Pan.” Jack headed out of the Command Center container box and out the Assault Boat’s hatch and came to an abrupt stop. A line of figures wearing dresses down to the deck covering their cans slid across the hanger deck flanked by Red Apes with more following with several guns trained on each of them. It took a moment for Jack to notice that the copies of Pan with different colored dresses and designs had thick red rings around their necks. It was not until they got much closer that he started noticing minor differences in the facial features between them and Pan standing next to him. If they had been human he would have even said that they all looked like twins of varying ages.