Battleship Destroyer (30 page)

"Black hole
? Yes it does boy! That would explain why we can't detect the exhaust. The black hole sucks it in."

"Sorry Admiral.
A black hole would just stop the reaction stream, throwing the mass force back into the ship as it was ingested. Then destroying the ship when the black hole was shut off and that mass was released in pure energy that would engulf the engines and the ship. If you left the black hole on, it would become a huge anchor keeping the ship from accelerating. Basic conservation of motion Admiral. The energy released by the collapsing artificial black holes at the back of the enemy engines we are seeing have only a few atoms of mass or leakage, (or they would destroy their own ship), creating the small explosions far enough away from the engines to keep them from destroying the engines. No. even if they were expelling mass much more efficiently bypassing the Blackhole (though why you would want a black hole if you were simply expelling mass) we would still be able to detect it no matter how small the stream of particles were and we aren’t detecting any kind of a mass trail or stream. Not even ion particles." Smiling as something just dawned on him, Jack looked up at the ceiling thinking for a few seconds. Shrugged then shook his head and looked at the Admiral. "Nothing Admiral. NOTHING."

Jack walked back over to the table. The other officers had already backed away when the admiral had called the engine a clever fake.
"Now that I have gotten something to eat and taken a break I see that this is the best we can do for a Blackhole engine without redesigning the ship around one or putting them out on pylons like the Spiders have done with their engines that are some 5 times the size and 20 times the weight of ours. Fact is, because of the forces needed to contain the black holes inside a case, there is a limit as to how big and powerful we can make a black hole engine. With the weight of the case going up geometrically with the size of the engine. To double the power you need a case twice the size but 4 times the strength." Tapping a bunch of keys erasing most everything the other officers had added or changed and then making a few changes himself, Jack hit the start icon and the engine burst to life again still at half thrust of the existing battleship engines but running smoothly. "But even if we got as much thrust, it still would not be good enough. We need something that is better than the Spiders, not equal. "

The Ensign still sitting next to Jack
shook her arm, flexing her fingers and spoke up. "The problem with your theory Admiral is that the enemy capital ships do not change in mass. Every one of them have the exact same mass (depending on their size) in every sensor reading we have on them over the years even when they first came in from deep space and all we had were long range readings. We could still accurately determine their mass. I have not had much to do on the Damage control board so I have run the numbers many times looking for mistakes and trying to explain it."

Looking over at the admiral with his mouth dropped open
in the silent compartment, she continued. "We also have close ups of the smaller ships that are running around as scouts ahead of the fleet and amongst our outer systems and I cannot understand why anyone has not made a note of this before. Though I have to admit, this is the first time we have had a good look at more than one at a time, and then what we did have were fuzzy long shots." She started typing on the keypad in front of her and enemy ships started appearing on the bulkhead screens. "But all their small ships are just big ships with parts of their front hulls and weapons and engines blasted away or missing." Pointing at one on the screen. "That one has several hundred feet missing from its front hull already with the top deck full of holes." She moved the enemy ships around to compare them beside each other, each with fewer engines and front decks than the one next to them from the biggest to the smallest ranging from some 14 decks and 8 engines all the way down to no decks and only two engines and then continued. "In fact. Some of their smallest ships are only the short barreled stern central section with no heavy weapons with a couple of engines instead of the 8 on the full sized ships. If you were correct about the forward pancake decks being reactant mass tanks, these smaller ships with none of the pancake decks but jagged hull fragments in front of the weapons arm and control decks, would have a range that would not get them out of a system unless they had no crew to make room for the mass tanks which kills the mass tank theory anyway. That is if you ignored the never changing mass readings on all their ships."

The
Ensign suddenly looked amused. "Fact is, I am shocked since my job is damage control; that none of the enemy ships show any signs of repairs at all. Are they that far away from a yard or just lack the ability to repair ships even though they look so modulated they should be extremely easy to replace parts on. How did so many of their ships get so damaged anyway? Surely not from our few battleship squadrons that they have slaughtered taking our outposts and colony systems with the few orbital gun platforms they had. Can they even make new ships, is this all they have until reinforcement arrive? And when is that. If you ask me sir. This has to be a very old and experienced Commander and he is going to be damn careful where he uses his ships and is not going to rush into any trap even if he was sure he was fighting rowboats which they are. He has no reason to chase our pitiful bait squadron into a trap. These are not shiny new ships, these crews are not Rookies that run after chasing rabbits and ignoring reality sir. But obviously you are Admiral."

"
If you cannot replace your losses." The Red Dwarf's Captain said. "Tactics dictate that you move only when you are sure of the enemy and the battle and only in massed attacks and avoid any surprises. That is why they are taking their time advancing or they would have been in Earth orbit already. The fact that the systems they are leaving behind are stripped of all heavy metals is a good hint, as well as to why it is taking so long to go from system to system.  Then they are only keeping ships at 4 or 5 systems to keep their supply lines short. They don't have to rush squadrons around looking for our fleet that can fall into traps where they can lose ships even to rowboats. Admiral, you can do nothing at this time to prevent them from continuing to occupying and stripping New Mexico and maybe even the next system a few months after this if they stay on schedule. But you can slow them down simply by being here and staying out of their reach as a threat.  Or you can lose the fleet and insure they quickly take every human system left in a matter of weeks. We cannot fight their war Admiral right now. We have to fight a gorilla war sending ships around to attack their supply lines even as short as they are, delaying them until we can build the fleet and weapons that can take them on head to head. You are just going to have to hope that your family made it to the hills and can hide out until the Spiders leave in a year or two after they have stripped the planets heavy metals. Not to mention the fact that the Communists and Arab's along with a Dozen other Empires are martialing fleets to come to our aid and help us in 6 to 9 months. Our combined fleets may be able to do what you are planning."

The Admiral turned beet red. "How dare you lector me about the enemy
and tactics. All we have to do is box them in to keep them from running and pound them to pieces before those damn Commies or Muslim fanatics back stab us again." Looking at the Ensign. "I want that Ensign out of here, thrown in the brig and court-martialed for disrespecting a superior officer."

"
Damn it Admiral.  That war was over 50 years ago and how do you plan on pounding them into pieces when they have thick armored decks designed to hide and protect anything vulnerable on their ships and absorb weapons fire from guns hotter and twice the size of anything we have on our ships while they tear our ships apart with every shot." The Ensign said disgustedly.  "Even if we manage to get within range of our cold yellow guns and slow torpedoes we will lose simply because they have more ships than we do and we can't out run them with the engines we now have. Again Admiral, we are unarmored barges using water pistols for propulsion, with flashlights for guns compared to their ships." She sneered at Jack thinking about zapping him before she left but shook her head as she headed around to leave and looked at the Admiral deciding he was the one that needed stunned. "

"Get the hell out you. You
disrespectful spy." The Admiral yelled, turning red. " How dare she talk to me like that
!
I want her arrested this minute.” The Admiral screamed.

"Ensign! You still have your orders. Now go back and sit down." T
he Captain ordered trying to suppress a smile knowing she was right. "And keep your mouth shut. You have said quite enough."

The Ensign walked back around the tabl
e as Jack watched her. Shocked. He could not believe she had stood up for and helped him.

The
Admiral stood up. "Enough of your defeatists talk. Their ships can't be that big. More likely they are only destroyer sized, massed together to form that stupid wall trying to scare us into not attacking them. So Gentlemen. We are attacking as planned and if your Ensign is correct and they don't have repair facilities. Then taking them out now is imperative before their reinforcements arrive or they build repair facilities. Send your currier ships with this boy and his junk engine idea back to Earth to start development. But it is a waste of time and if you pull out before I order you too, I will have you court-martialed when I win this battle." Looking at the Captain with narrowed eyes. "And if we don't win, I can blame you and still get you court-martialed Captain Halsey." Deliberately using his brevet rank while commanding a ship.

T
he Captain stood up. "That is Admiral Halsey to you Admiral. I don’t know how you managed to get the President to order you assigned to this fleet for this battle, bypassing the Admiralty, but I will not let you destroy the fleet in a futile attempt to rescue your family that you refused to evacuate in the first place, more worried about losing your vast land holdings there than your family, even though you were told the enemy fleet was coming. You have no chance of winning this battle Admiral. But very well sir. I will stay with the fleet long enough to unload most of my reaction mass if you use my ships first to mass up the fleet at point Charlie. The last re-massing of the entire fleet before contact with the enemy."

"That is going to delay things having to
mass from one taskforce instead of both Admiral Halsey." Admiral Binghamton said frowning not wanting any delay keeping him from his battle and his family. Not caring about anything else even if it cost the Republic the war and the lives of billions.

Jack sat back realizing that sending him and the plans back was the only sensible thing to do. So why did he feel like he would be deserting. Hell it was a suicide mission to stay. He sure as hell did not want to die. So
why the hell was he even thinking about an alternative? He cleared the screen, deleted the holographic Blackhole engine and sat back thinking. How stupid could an admiral be thinking a black hole could absorb mass without consequences. Besides shooting mass at such a small black hole was stupid, most would most likely skip around to be flung out the other side at a greatly increased speed unless you were very accurate and actually hit the mini black hole itself. Jack smiled. If you made that black hole the size of an atom or sub atomic particle you would not have all the stresses associated with the large basketball sized black holes the enemy was using on their ships engines.

The Admiral stopped at
the hatch. "Very well Captain. You can leave early if your tanks are empty just in case we do ah... Run into problems. I want you out of my hair anyway."

"Ah
, hold on their Admiral." Jack almost shouted surprising himself. "Can I make a suggestion please?" Jack's fingers started running over the virtual keyboard again.

The Admiral turned around
to face Jack. "What the hell is it boy. Haven't you caused enough trouble for one day?"

Jack's fingers continued to fly as an engine started to materialize in front of them. The Admiral looked at Jack for a few seconds and then frowned as he started to turn back around to leave.
“I did not think so.”

"Admiral! I think I can use your idea of a
Blackhole hiding the reactant mass. Not to hide, but to accelerate the reaction mass. I can use it to increase the thrust of our fleet engines by a factor of 10 at least, while reducing the required mass by 99.99999 percent. Something we can install in a few hours in our existing engines if you don't mind delaying the attack a few hours. Well days. It will not only make them think we have engines as good as theirs but get rid of the drive mass in the tanks and lighten the ships making them maneuverable enough to fly rings around their ships. It will allow our fleet to retreat if the battle goes bad at an incredible acceleration instead of running out of mass and getting wiped out." Staring at the Admiral who was staring back at him. "Your idea Admiral. It deserves a chance." His fingers continued to fly over the virtual board directly in front of him without seeming to look. Sweat starting to drip down his face from fear as he swallowed. "You will not only be able to out run them but make flanking there wall easy, where you can get close enough to shoot them in there unarmored ass. My favorite tactic in The Game sir."

The Admiral stared at Jack for a few seconds and returned to his seat at the table. "I am one step from ordering you thrown out an airlock boy. What are you talking about?"