“You were right. We could take them. Will we catch this one?” he asked, no longer afraid.
I said, “I’d like to see us make it a clean sweep. If we do, then that’s one less trick that the enemy will know how to do. Frank, what do you think he’ll try to do? Slingshot around a planet?”
Frank answered, “Yeah, Dave. You thinking about doing it from the other side?”
“Why not? It works real well on pirates. These aliens aren’t any better. Just more of them is all or there were a while ago,” I said, getting a lot of smiles from others on the bridge who overheard my comment.
Frank went over to the pilots and explained the maneuver so that when the enemy ship tried to pull it, whichever of our pilots was at the controls would know what to do. I left the bridge and notified all the gunners about what to expect, reminding them to start shooting the moment they saw the enemy ship in range, no matter what gun station they had.
About an hour later, Frank spoke over the communications and said, “He’s trying to slingshot away. Get ready, folks!”
I watched as the man handling my gun station looked back at me as if to give it up. I shook my head and said, “No, you need to have some fun, too. I’ll watch.”
He smiled and turned his attention to watching for the enemy ship. We cut across on the other side of the planet and caught the enemy as he was about to slingshot away with greater speed than he otherwise would have been able to manage. I watched with pride as the man I told to have fun managed to hit the enemy vessel squarely on the third shot and watched it rupture suddenly.
The pilot moved us around the dead enemy hulk and back onto a course for our home port.
I reported back to the bridge and caught a round of applause from the acting Captain and the rest of the bridge personnel. I felt embarrassed for a moment and quickly recovered with, “Hey, guys! Don’t forget, it was a team thing. In fact, I didn’t even shoot that last ship. That was one of the gunners from the Avenger.” I then walked over to the acting Captain and asked, “Well, what now? You want to go hunting or return to port?”
For the first time, there was actually some enthusiasm in his face as he contemplated his options. We were successful, no matter that we had lost two ships and left one on another planet. We had accumulated nine kills for the two destroyed ships. That was better than any previous outing. Of course, I knew in the back of my mind that I would probably face a disciplinary proceeding when we got back. I wasn’t too anxious to return, even though I knew we couldn’t stay out too long with more people on board than we were meant to handle. Unfortunately, I could see that he realized that we had personnel who needed to be returned to port for reassignment, even if we were making good use of them. Plus, some of them were wounded. They really needed better attention than our on board surgeon was giving them.
“I think we better get back to port before we run out of supplies, not that it hasn’t been great kicking butt for a change. Navigator, plot a course for home and pass it on to the pilot. Set course as soon as you have the information. So, Dave, is that what you prefer to be called?” he asked.
I answered, “It’s just an old habit among some of us who used to run this ship for Pennyweight Shipping. Sometimes it’s just handier to call someone by whatever lets you know that you can rely on him and vice versa. Other times, it’s whatever is quickest to get someone’s attention.”
He replied, “I see. You and your people got anymore tricks up your sleeves?”
I answered, “We might. Mostly, it depends on the situation. We’re used to being in situations where we don’t have a whole squadron to support us and we have to protect a convoy. Of course, protecting a damaged ship is another thing entirely since it can’t maneuver out of the way in an emergency. I wish we could take the other ship back, but it’s probably in too deep for easy removal. Besides, I’ve heard from some of the crew that it was worse off than reported.”
He said, “Really? I’ll have to look into that. Anyway, I’ll try to support you when the Squadron Commander is taken ashore. I’m sure when he comes out of sedation, he’ll likely press charges. But I think that our results will figure handily in your defense.”
I replied, “Thanks, Captain. I appreciate that.”
I didn’t expect him to live up to his word and I was right. When we arrived and the Squadron Commander was taken ashore, it didn’t take more than an hour for the Shore Patrol to come to the Thurman to escort me off.
When the trial started the next day, the charges were that I had removed the Squadron Commander from his position and put the acting Captain in charge. I beat those charges handily partly by wearing my decorations on my uniform when I appeared in front of the court and, more importantly, by having Frank pick up the appropriate video tapes from the bridge recorder and entering them into evidence. Those, along with the combat videos, showed that I was busy fighting and not running the ship or any conspiracy.
Instead of me spending time in the stockade, the Squadron Commander was forced to resign as being physically unfit. The acting Captain was charged with perjury among other things. He spent the rest of the war in the stockade instead. Had any of the regular Navy officers taken the time to learn about the ship they were assigned to, they might have learned about the bridge recorders on the Thurman that weren’t standard equipment on Navy vessels.
Chapter 6
The combat videos provided an insight to others that I wasn’t aware of until just before the Thurman was ready to leave port. That’s when we received special orders while I was promoted to Lieutenant and made acting Captain of the Thurman, again. I looked at the special orders and grinned when I called my crew together and informed them all of our mission. I said, “Well folks, we’ve been given permission to search out the enemy wherever we can find him and take him on as we see fit. We’re fighting alone and we’ll have some extra equipment arriving along with a few extra gunners just so we can do our best.”
Frank came over and said quietly, “At least someone in the Navy knows how to use something that works.”
I nodded in quiet agreement as we checked out the Thurman from top to bottom to be sure that we were ready. For the first time in the war, I wasn’t in charge of just the hydroponics and the guns. I was then responsible for everything, no matter how great or small. If nothing else, I had excellent mentors while at Pennyweight to emulate as I went about my duties. Before we lifted off from port, I informed the Port Commander of my intentions to hold a drill in orbit before departing into deep space. I didn’t want them to launch an attack against us when we blasted away with our guns.
When we reached orbit, we spent three hours going through drills and teaching the regular Navy personnel the difference between the Navy way and the Pennyweight way. Since we were on our own, there was no need for us to be slow on the draw. We weren’t likely to be endangering any other vessels because of our fire, at least not any that we were worried about. We cut the time for responding to “battle stations” in half using the same method the company used of preparing the men and women by making them find their way to their stations from the most inaccessible locations possible.