Battleship Destroyer (9 page)

Jack watched Tom's ship take out the last of the torpedoes as well as another cruiser while hitting several more destroyers. He did not expect the enemy squadron to last much longer under the Battlecruisers guns now that they had Tom's full attention.
It was over in only a few minutes as Jack watched Tom's bridge break out in celebration.

Finally To
m turned his attention to the Enemies main fleet. "Damn it Jack." Came Tom's voice as he shook his head. "It is going to take an hour to repair the engine and I don't dare close until I can out run them. Looks like I am out of the battle. By the time I get back it will be all over with. You better finish taking them out. I can't take on a whole fleet by myself. But at least I should have enough to add some armor around my engines. Next time I will hang with the fleet and take them all out."

Tom was a damn go
od fighter when he was cornered and had to fight. But that was Tom’s biggest problem, he had to be cornered. Jack knew that if he had taken on the enemy squadron from the beginning instead of running, he probably would have gotten holed a few times in the tanks but little else. He could have taken most of them out in short order before the rest escaped and went back to concentrating on the rest of the Enemy fleet. Though Jack realized that the Battlecruiser fit Tom's personality and fighting style perfectly.  At least from now on he would stay close to his fleet, even if he got within the enemy's gun range. Next time at what would amount to point blank range for his guns, Tom would decimate the enemy and they all would start going for the really big gunned ships. Possibly starting a mini arms race. Jack chuckled at that. But he also noticed Tom had gone back to talking about more armor and not the Targeting Scouts. Damn!

"Ya. We have it bro
." Jack thought for a few seconds and then smiled.  "Tell you what Tom. Grow a few balls. Get your damn butt down with the rest of the fleet anyway and finish off the enemy battleships yourself. “Jack turned away as his squadron started closing back into formation after making their exit out of the enemy fleet's medium gun range. The big guns were much too busy concentrating on the battleships as he watched the Killer Queen's two Battleships turn from the main fleet and head around the flank to take out the damaged stragglers now the enemy fleet was outnumbered. Her move was also allowing her to keep her broadside across the T of the enemy fleet as they finally turned to present their broadside to the main portion of the Republic fleet. Jack smiled, she definitely had a head on her shoulders and wasn't afraid to charge to the attack when she had the advantage. But then he knew that about her already.

Turning
, Jack watched his number 4 destroyer return to his formation trailing reaction mass vapors.  It looked like it was missing a good portion of its Port side wings along with a chunk of the port side trailing tip wedge of the fuselage.  "Number 4, damage report!" He barked.

"
Sorry sir. That Damn Destroyer had to go and blow up in front of us. A section of it hit us. The outer portside guns are down and we are leaking reaction mass sir. But we are still running and ready for another attack."

"Ya but just barely. Your cooling f
ins are missing on the port side as are your tanks.  Head for home, you are done for the day." The damage report on his screen did not look serious or expensive yet, though another run could change that quickly, making Jack smile. One of the advantages of Destroyers unlike the larger armored ships which were costly to make repairs to no matter how minor the damage looked. Thick armor was always expensive if damaged but then it was also hard to damage. Not to mention the cost of cutting hundreds of square feet of thick armor to get equipment out to replace after a beam only inches across completely slags and destroys a major piece of equipment. The cost of replacing was usually more than the cost of the equipment. And then the best fact of all was that sending one Destroyer home for repairs before it received additional hits making the damage serious and expensive, was not a big loss to the squadron’s firepower.

"Sir. Permission to transfer ships
.  Twelve is cold and still in decent shape. Let the A.I. take this one home."

"Very well. You have my permission to transfer crew and command." Jack
realized he should have thought of that as he checked over the rest of his little fleet and decided they were in decent enough shape for another attack. His mind went to the enemy fleet now trailing a long line of damaged slowing ships and a surprising large group of dead hulks where Jack’s squadron had left them as the much smaller enemy fleet exchanged shots with the now much bigger allied fleet even though they had lost a few ships as well.

Jack
studied the enemy fleet trying to figure out if it was going to run or not since it was now out numbered. Though just barely. It would make a big difference in how he made his next attack. A fleeing enemy spread out over half of space would be easy to pick off.  But that would require picking up the drop tanks left behind first if they headed in the wrong direction. It also meant he would be able to concentrate on finishing off the damaged ships without having to make high-speed runs on them through massed formations, allowing him to conserve reaction mass and extending his time in the battle. Greatly increasing his ship count and bounty. But it did not look like they were getting ready to run. Not yet.

"
Damn it. Ok, let's head in for another attack. We now have two sets of drop tanks to dump. Only this time we will follow these in, now that they know they are just drop tanks. Just remember where the drop tanks we stashed on the other side of the enemy are or you will be walking home and miss out on the next round of attacks."

Jack smiled.
He was debating whether to split up his squadron into pairs of ships to plant good solid shots up the asses of the remaining enemy Battleships. Hopefully getting easy kills as damaged as most of the enemy ships were already from hits by his allied Battleship fleet, making short work of them before the advertised Steak and Lobster dinner that evening. But if the enemy battleships were not that damaged yet, all his two ship attacks would be doing was target practicing if they could not finish killing off the damn ships. No he decided he would make one more pass with his 4 ship sections taking out several more battleships cleanly. Then do one pass with two ship flights concentrating on hitting engines to cull out the more damaged ships. Once the damaged enemy ships got strung out behind their main fleet, he could slow his ships down and take his time destroying the isolated stragglers with his remaining reaction mass. He could have enough bounty for another Destroyer or two in his fleet's account when it was all over.

The problem was that if the enemy fleet was game controlled, it would have to be virtually decimated before the A.I. would run.
It was going to be a shame when he had to break off contact probably just when the enemy fleet finely decided to run for home with him out of reaction mass for his ships. Damn shame. Oh well, maybe he would let his friend drag him to the space port's mall and the titty bar after all to make up for the lost opportunity. But then, Tom would have plenty of time to sit back out of range and pound the stragglers to hulks one after another. Jack smiled, Tom's Battlecruiser was good for something after all. Jack started mulling pulling his little squadron back after this next attack until the enemy fleet turned to run. The idea was looking better by the second. He would just have to wait and see how damaged the enemy was.

Then an
idea popped into his mind as he stared at the destroyer in formation next to him. He wondered how hard it could be to redesign one of his destroyers into a drop tank hauler. Simply lengthening its hull by adding a long central boom with racks to stack full drop tanks too, couldn’t be that hard. After all it would only be adding a little mettle. With racks ready for the Destroyers to easily grab the tanks from. The possibility started to take over his thinking as a good design was proceeded to coalesce in his mind complete with auto latches and guidance systems for rapid docking for him to fall in love with. The details of the design starting to overwhelm his desire to go anywhere with his best buddy Tom. Even to a Titty bar.  Suddenly shaking his head to clear his mind as he smiled.  But for now, he had to force his mind back onto the job at hand. He had Battleships to destroy so he could afford to build one.

Then his ship exploded around him as the ships self-destruct tore it apart. His helmet went dark as he w
as knocked from his chair. His helmet flew off his head in pieces as he hit the deck hard.  Looking up shaking his head trying to clear his mind and eyes, his brother was standing over him in sweat pants, a towel over his shoulder and a big smile as he lifted his hand again ready to strike. "You sorry son of a bitch. You threw shit on my uniform when I turned my back on you didn't you!" His brother screamed at him as he raised his fist to swing again.

Their sister stopped in
Jack's cabin's hatch. "Everything Ok in here? What is the problem?"

"
Nothing’s the problem. Just trying to keep Jack from destroying the rest of his room throwing a tantrum."

"Oh. What was that I heard about throwing shit?"

Taking a deep breath Dan sneered at his sister. "I told him to stop throwing his shit around his room sis. Looks like he is calming down now." Turning to Jack. "You are going to be calm now aren’t you Jack?" Smiling he turned back to his sister. "See. Nothing to worry about now. I will finish helping him clean things up."

"Good Dan. You are so helpful. Jack is lucky to have you as a brother. Don't miss dinner." She continued down the passageway.

Waiting for her steps to disappear out the next hatch. "Sorry brother but I hit your self-destruct on accident. I can't believe you did not code it you fool. Besides I did not give you permission to play your stupid game. You have another job to do before dinner." His brother was very proud of himself.

"Bull shit,
you did that on purpose. You have to hit 5 sets of keys to self-destruct a ship." Looking at the screen next to the cubical with "Self Destruct Completed." Plastered across the screen. "Hell it takes a bunch of programing to have kept the warning off my bridge you asshole." Turning red in disbelief. "You killed me and my best crew. It will take me months to work my way back up to Captain and more months to rebuild a crew while my squadron breaks up going their own way with my ships damn you. You. You."

"So what
dickhead. Get your butt down to…"

"You get your
own butt down the shitter if you like or not." Jack said still lying on the deck where his brother had knocked him. To pissed to think straight.  "I am off duty and am going to the mall with Tom after dinner you ass hole. I can't believe you destroyed my ship you prick." With his brother twice his size, growing red faced and balling his raised fists as he bent over above him. Jack suddenly regretted yelling and talking back at his brother and shrank away trying to hide since he was in no position to run. Raising his hands over his face more in an attempt to hide than to protect himself.

To immature
and cowed to even think of fighting back against a brother twice his size. His eyes fell on the blinking icon in the corner of the screen on The Game console that said Tom and that pain in the butt girl was calling. He just hoped he would be alive to answer as he tried to hate his brother but then realized it was all his fault. He had to do something different and better and quit letting a dense stupid rock hit him all the time by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes. The problem was that he had no idea what he could do different since his brother as with most people, was beyond understanding to him. Especially the fact that his brother supposedly loved him but kept going out of his way to do things he could not understand. But then so did his loving parents. Whatever the problem was he did not like it and was getting really tired of it all. The fact that The Battleship Game was predictable, consistent and understandable was the only thing that kept him going and half way sane. The Game would not tolerate any bad behavior no matter the cause. It was also very good at fixing mental problems when they showed up in crewmen. Not by putting them on couches but by creating and strictly controlling situations in The Game to draw out and then help the crewmen realize and repair their own mental problems. The culmination of a thousand years of programming by the best minds.

His brother started slowly l
owering his raised hand and then sneered. "You are off duty when Dad says you are off duty creeton." His shit eating grin became even wider as he looked around and spotted a target. He swung at the game console instead of Jack. His big fist crashing down on the console smashing electronics everywhere and then he knocked the reality booth control module from its side and stomped it into fragments.  "So much for you wasting time playing the stupid game." Bending over he placed his nose up against Jacks face. "You aren’t going anywhere for a month if I tell dad you disobeyed a direct order AGAIN or if I tell him you had a break down and destroyed your cabin." And proceeded to destroy the virtual reality emitters around the cabinet. With nothing left to break and satisfied, his brother stopped at the cabins hatch. "You say one word about this and I will have you charged with destruction of property during a mental break down. You won't leave the ship ever again after they put you in a padded room. Now get dressed and get your fricking butt down to the Number 2 generator. Something is wrong with it. Fix it before dinner or go hungry and don't forget to sign my name to it." Stopping half out of Jack's cabin. "Oh don't worry about your game. You aren’t going to have time to play it anymore anyway. Starting Monday, you are mine 8 hours a day starting at muster in the morning. Your lazy school days are over dick weed. I am going to work your butt off paying back all the money you owe me."