To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch44 Battle for the Confederacy Pt.IV

Battle for the Confederacy Pt.IV

Jenkins pulled at his sweat-stained shirt, try to create a breeze to cool down. He wasn't the only person suffering from the sweltering heat inside the CIC, even Bell was tempted to strip off her overcoat. She resisted the urge however to try and project poise and strength to her brave men, who time and time again put their lives in her hands. Of course she still had to replace her tea with a cooling glass of water to prevent herself from passing out.

The central processors were working well above their usual load. With hundreds of thousands of objects to track on the field of battle to prevent one of their ships from running headfirst into the broken remains of a slave freighter, and several enemy fleets to track and predict, it was no wonder that the computer was beginning to overheat. They were heating faster than the cooling systems could account for and if they didn't get a break soon then they might experience a catastrophic failure.

"Jenkins, could we possibly engage the full fleet brain?" she asked.

"Maybe Sir, we could delegate some of the more monotonous tasks out to the rest of the fleet, but their power and cooling systems are overtaxed as well. We could risk drawing power away from key systems." He informed her.

Bell bit her lower lip, Beelzebub could not continue on at her current rate, but if her decision to delegate out some of the menial tasks cost the other ships key systems that could mean life or death then she wouldn't be able to live with herself. What they really needed was a chance to break away from the fight and extend their radiator foils to allow their cooling systems a chance to catch up. But that was much easier said than done, they could barely buy themselves enough time to let their shields recharge.

"Have we finished spoofing the maneuvering commands?" she asked.

"Just about Sir, but I'm afraid we will only get one chance."

"Then it will have to be our hail marry."

~~~*~~~

Modius received the insane plan from the CIC aboard Beelzebub, and had begun to pray to Torwen that this insane scheme wouldn't be the end of him. He knew Bell very well, she was calm and level headed. She wouldn't propose something like this unless she knew it was absolutely necessary. And on paper he could see it working out in their favor so long as everything went right, but Murphy's law that anything that can go wrong will go wrong eventually. And with a plan with so many different moving parts and variables had a much higher chance of going to hell.

But he trusted Bell, and she wouldn't play with everyone's lives on a whim. And if this worked it might be what they needed to turn this battle around. Most of the other shoddy pirate vessels had been eliminated or had fled the battlefield entirely. Some had even turned traitor and tried to join with the Aunviry, Modius took dark pleasure in destroying any who tried to switch sides. Their missile loaders had expended their stockpile and more would need to be carted out from the central magazine, which would take time and manpower. And about half of their railguns had been made inoperable, and the number one main mount had been damaged after a bit of debris had shot through their forward shields and smacked right into the massive gun. Fortunately it wasn't totally destroyed, but it did need some emergency repairs which would require some of his crew to exit the ship to render repairs. Something that was far to dangerous to attempt in the middle of a space battle.

"Prime the guns and load all missile tubes, but cease firing until I give the order. All power to shields and prepare for a hard turn." He ordered to his bridge. Aibus had received the same orders from Bell and had only been waiting on Modius for confirmation. Modius reached over onto his command console for a ship wide channel "All crew, brace yourselves for hard maneuvering. I repeat, all crew, brace yourselves for hard maneuvering."