Star Man 1: Star Bourne Page 12

  At this point, the shields were still powering up and had not yet reached their maximum strength. As our velocity decreased, I dared to hope our maneuver, coming through the jump exit tail first had worked, or even better, that the pirates didn’t have mines when there was a loud bang and the ship lurched violently. I saw Shulari immediately start paging through the screens on her console, looking to find out what happened. The Captain said nothing, he already knew he had a superb crew who would inform him as soon as they knew what was going on. He also knew crowding the crew or micro-managing them would not get him the information he needed any faster so he just sat quietly, waiting for them to report the damage. Meanwhile, I sat quietly, thinking to myself, this Tangesha is a fine leader, he knows how to lead and inspire his crew, he knows crowding his people is only likely to cause mistakes.

  After a few seconds of checking, Shulari reported, “Hull breach on upper deck Captain. Damage control teams and rescue teams en route. It looks like Mr Gordon may have been right about the mines. Area is sealed off, no significant systems damage, six casualties reported so far, none serious.”

  Not long after, we heard another two loud bangs with accompanying lurching of the ship, not as violently on these occasions. Neither of these explosions produced any additional detectable damage to the ship or casualties. Later, we came to the conclusion that these two blasts were mines that were detonated by the exhaust plumes as the ship decelerated into the mine field. It seemed those mines were detonated far enough away that only some of the shock wave impacted the ship causing the accompanying lurching and the bang. Finally, the ship achieved zero motion relative to the jump point. FNS Destiny seemed to sit there motionless for a few seconds before she started to move back towards the jump point. As it turned out, after we exited the jump point into this system, we’d traveled a little further from it than we originally intended because of a simple mathematical error. This simple error resulted in us entering the jump point in the Zafar system carrying fifty percent more velocity than we’d originally intended. Because the exit velocity is the same as the jump entry velocity, we exited carrying a correspondingly higher velocity than we intended. Normally, this would not have been an issue unless we entered the jump at the other end at a velocity higher than the upper limit, but in this case it may have been responsible for the mine strike along with the resultant damage FNS Destiny sustained.

  We’d entered the system stern first for three primary reasons. First, we hoped that on exit from the jump point in the system, we were already oriented to begin our planned deceleration, using the mains for this would allow us to decelerate much more quickly. Second, we hoped the exhaust plume from the main engines would either detonate any mines in our path or push them and any other debris away from the ship before impact. The third reason for entering the system tail first, was that we wanted to place ourselves on the other side of the jump point before our pursuers could follow us through, this orientation meant we could achieve that goal much more quickly. We hoped positioning ourselves behind the jump point would give us an opportunity to fire missiles into their tail before they were aware of our location or able to bring their shields up to full power. This meant we needed to be as close as possible to the jump point while still maintaining a safe distance from any likely emergence vector. The ultimate result, or so we hoped, would be that the time between missile lock and launch would be as short as possible. We hoped we could achieve missile launch much too quickly for them to be able to react effectively. Being so close to the jump point also ensured the flight time for our munitions would be minimised.

  During our planning, we estimated we should have at least several hours between arriving in the system and the emergence of the first of the two pursuing pirate ships. Just before we entered the jump our sensor operators updated the position, speed and acceleration data on both ships. They, in conjunction with the navigators, also updated our estimate of the pirate’s likely arrival time. The new estimate led us to believe the earliest we could expect to see one of our two pursuers would be approximately six hours after our arrival in this system. When we reoriented ourselves prior to jump, the other ships were still too far away to be able to see our maneuvering, other than the deceleration aspects which they would have expected anyway.

  FNS Destiny was not a particularly heavily armed ship, especially compared to the cruisers her design was based upon. She did however, still have the ability to give most attackers, particularly the average pirate, a bloody nose if she was cornered. We had eight missile tubes in the bow, several heavy rail guns and some heavy lasers available. We planned to fire a spread of four missiles at each of the pursuing ships in the hope those missiles would be able to impact the other ships before they were able to bring their shields to full power. Our four rail guns plus four lasers, all of which were turret mounted and could project the necessary hitting power to be useful against a capital ship were to be fired at the same time to add additional stress to the shields. Finally, he had twenty, point defence laser turrets spread around the hull though, by now we were aware that one of these was damaged after the mine impacted our hull.

  The course back to our chosen ambush site was by necessity a little circuitous. The last thing we could afford was to be run over by one or both of our pursuers if they were to arrive earlier than we expected. During transit back to our ambush position, the damage control teams made there way to the damaged area and began inspecting the damage caused by the mine to the hull. When they reported the actual extent of the damage, I could see the bridge officers were quite relieved. One, point defence laser had been damaged and was currently non-functional, but it could be repaired with available spares. The hull was breached but the Captain told me it would be fully repairable once we were clear of the current dangerous situation. We eventually arrived at our planned ambush point where we oriented the ship ready for our attack and prepared to wait for the arrival of our pursuers. By this time, the casualties sustained during the mine blast had all been moved to the medical bay for treatment. Thankfully, once the medical staff assessed their injuries, all but one were given some Nano-bots to treat the damage before being sent to their quarters with orders to rest for at least one day. They were all told to report to medical for clearance prior to returning to duty. The remaining casualty required somewhat more extensive treatment and would be in the medical bay for much longer.

  When FNS Destiny was in position, the Captain called the damage control contingent back into the core of the ship well before the anticipated time of arrival of our pursuers. During our planning sessions the Captain decided to keep all non-essential personnel well away from the outer hull during the coming action. Once everything was ready, we sat and waited. A steward bought a selection of light refreshments in sealed drinking bulbs, we all accepted one. We were all feeling thirsty by then so these refreshments met our needs to drink some fluids and broke the tension a little while we waited. The bulbs contained either a hot liquid with a stimulant, quite similar to caffeine actually, or one of several of the cold drinks available to us on the ship. By then, we all needed this to keep us a little more alert. I have to admit; when I think back to then, I am still very impressed with the crews focus while we waited for the arrival of our pursuers.

  The sensor operator had both active and passive scans running while we waited. He reported there was currently only one ship waiting for us in the system. From the sensor data, it seemed to be picketing the jump point we needed to exit from, which wasn’t surprising to us really. He also detected about thirty-seven unknown objects surrounding the corridor we would have followed if we’d taken the standard route when entering the system.

  When I looked at the three-dimensional locations of those objects, it appeared to me that they were probably the mines I’d theorised earlier. The Captain looked at me and just nodded. I think he was very happy with me right then because up till then, mines were completely unknown to the Federation, now we had proof of their existence. The Captai
n asked each of the stations for a status report and received one in return. I suspect, at this point the Captain simply wanted to keep everyone busy and focused on the job at hand.

  As I looked at the pattern the mines were laid in and the way they were currently moving, it was clear to me that at least some of them had been pushed aside by our exhaust plume. When I look back, I think the explosion that caused the hull breach was just plain bad luck. The mine was too close to the ship when the mains started so it wasn’t pushed far enough away before it detonated. I think the second two were ignited by the exhaust plume but were not close enough to cause any further damage. As it turned out, we were lucky in so many ways throughout our ordeal. In this case, doing the unpredictable paid off for us, causing us to escape far more serious damage than may otherwise have been the case. Now all we needed, was to keep on being unpredictable in the hope we could make our way home without incurring any further damage, or at least with only minimal additional damage. Finally, twenty-four minutes and seventeen seconds after we arrived on station near the jump point, the sensor operator reported an emergence at the jump point, then quickly confirmed it as one of the pursuing pirates.

  Veragain quickly reported he had missile lock on the intruder and fired a spread of four missiles. He then started launching rail gun rounds and firing the lasers. The pirate ship started taking hits just as her shields began to come up. Its shields were struggling to come up to an effective level because of the punishment we were meting out when the four missiles hit home. The pirate ship exploded just as the second ship came through the jump point.

  Debris from the explosion impacted the hull of the second pirate ship, just as some of our trailing rounds, rounds we originally aimed at the first pirate ship reached it. Its drive immediately spluttered and died followed by the ship stating to tumble through space. Our weapons were immediately re-targeted on the second ship as it continued like this and eventually entered the minefield. Suddenly it hit some of its own mines and exploded just prior to us launching the four missiles we’d earmarked for it. As it turned out, just before our missiles hit the first pirate ship, they managed to launch six missiles of their own in our direction. In addition to this, the second pirate also fired another six missiles before she was destroyed by their own mines. Luckily, we were already on alert with our point defence system active. The twelve inbound missiles were all destroyed by a combination of our point defence laser and rail-gun fire well before any of them could come near enough to be any kind of a threat.

  Those of us who were on the bridge were completely dumbfounded by what just happened. Frankly, we all knew we had no right to expect a tactic to be as outrageously successful as this one turned out to be. One of the pirate ships was destroyed by our weapons fire while the second was effectively destroyed by their own trap. Cheers erupted on the bridge as the realisation of what we’d achieved sank home. We’d bought ourselves more time, time to repair our damage, time to plan our next steps and time to rest before we tried to run the blockade and leave this system behind.

  The Captain asked, “Sensors, are there any signs of survivors from either of those ships?”

  The sensor operator replied, “No sir, no beacons, no life signs. Not even much debris. That second ship explosion destroyed at least five of the mines they had out there, or perhaps the mines destroyed the ship.”

  Captain Carlon pondered this for a few minutes before giving his orders. “We need to destroy those mines first. We need to make sure no innocent ships coming by here can be harmed by them. Tactical, use the main lasers to destroy them all. Helm, position the ship as required by tactical but make sure we don’t blunder into any more of those mines. People, we need to get this job done as quickly as possible, I’m not at all comfortable staying here any longer than we really need to. I don’t want to still be here if any more of these pirates turn up.”

  In unison both the tactical officer and the helmsman replied, “Yes Sir.”

  In the end, we spent the next four hours destroying the remaining mines because this was tedious, painstaking work. The ship would be maneuvered to a location where either the point defence or one of the main weapons, at least one of the big lasers, could destroy the mine. Once that task was completed and all the mines destroyed, the Captain turned to the helm to give his next set of orders. The ship first headed back towards our ambush position before rotating ninety degrees from the plane of the elliptic and starting to accelerate. The Captains intention was to move well above the remains of the minefield before turning towards the other jump point following a curving path well away from any likely normal shipping lane. It was not the most direct route but it would bring us to the other jump point from an unexpected direction. We expected the journey to the other jump point to take about three weeks. The three week delay would allow plenty of time for repairs and for the crew to rest. Of course, we needed to make other preparations before attempting to force our way past the ship lying in wait for us at the other jump point. These other preparations of course included planning for the expected upcoming battle. The other ship would see us coming, he would be ready and waiting when we arrived. We finally stood down from Alert one twenty minutes after commencing on the new course. One hour later, the Captain ordered the ship to secure from Alert two as we continued on our circuitous route towards the second jump point with no hint of problems from our recent engagement.

  Once the Captain stood the ship down from Alert two, the repair crews were ordered into the damaged section of the ship to begin making the necessary repairs. This first part of the repair work was quite dangerous, mainly due to the fact that the crews had to work in vacuum with live power feeders, torn and jagged structure or, if they somehow lost contact with the ship, they could easily be lost in the void. The repair crews first had to make the area as safe as possible, then remove many of the systems components, conduits and wiring. Some of these components were removed to gain clear access, others because they were damaged and needed to be repaired or replaced. Once all those removal tasks were completed, the repair crews needed to cut the distorted and torn hull plating and frame members away. This part of the process took over three days because they needed to take great care not to damage any additional structure or equipment, not to mention reducing the risk of damaging themselves. While all these preparations were underway, engineering began fabricating new structural members to replace the ones that were damaged. Of course, the new structural members were fabricated in the order they would be required so when the team was ready to commence rebuilding, the correct parts would be ready and work could continue at the maximum possible pace.

  During this time, Captain Carlon called a number of meetings to debrief the crew and dissect our recent engagement looking for lessons that could be learned. He was kind enough to include me in those meetings. We were all a little concerned about the mathematical error that led to us entering the jump point by a margin so much higher than our intended entry velocity. It turned out the rating who made the mistake was considered a mathematical genius. She habitually performed these calculations in her head and had never been known to make a mistake in the calculations before. Because of this, her supervisor made the mistake of not checking her calculations before they were used. The incorrect figures directly led to us entering the jump point at a velocity much higher than the Captain intended. The higher velocity ultimately led to the ship suffering damage when she exited the jump point and could not be stopped as quickly as intended. The navigation rating normally did her calculations mentally because it was faster and had proven just as accurate over an extended period of time. In the end, the Captain came to the conclusion that the blame was not hers but her supervisor’s because he’d not checked her calculations for himself which is something he was expected to do. If the supervisor had checked her numbers properly, the error would almost certainly have been detected. The review process was in place to catch errors such as these and is usually very reliable if it is followed. In a time of d
ire emergency, the choice to not check the numbers would have been acceptable. The Captain decided that in this case, it was not an acceptable decision because there was plenty of time for the supervisor to make the necessary checks. He’d simply become lazy because of her normally high level of accuracy and reliability. I believe the conversation and the rating’s supervisor was quite heated.

  These same meetings were also used to monitor the ship’s overall status. The ship had been on its mission for some time so significant amounts of its supplies, particularly food had already been consumed. As well as this, we’d moved a lot of our remaining food reserves and hidden or stockpiled them in other parts of the ship. While the food situation was not considered critical, the inability to obtain fresh supplies on Zafar made things a little tighter than expected for this stage of the voyage. Of course, on the positive side, the consumption and redistribution of the food left us ample room to store fabricated parts out of the way till the repair crews were ready for them. The purpose of this review was to try to put the lessons learned to good use in any upcoming engagement and to give the Captain a high level of awareness of the status of both the ship and her crew. Everyone expressed how dumbfounded they were that the framework for the plan had been proposed by me, an apparent primitive from a backward planet, with no military experience and certainly no experience in space. At first I was a little hurt, even upset at their attitude. I just wanted to walk away and sulk in my cabin but after a very short time I began to realise they were just joking with me. That was when I realised the Tangesha people, or at least those who I’d met on this ship, had a very dry sense of humour. I made a mental note to myself never to play poker with them, they really didn’t give anything away.